Denton County

Denton County Reports 681 New COVID-19 Cases, Only 5 Remaining ICU Beds

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In Denton County cases of COVID-19 continue to surge, along with hospitalizations. State data shows the county has only five open ICU beds and on Thursday they reported 681 new cases of the virus.

“We are down to five staffed ICU beds in all of Denton County, that’s an average of one per hospital,” said Denton Count Judge Andy Eads.

Judge Eads says the county has sufficient bed space but is running increasingly short on nurses.

“We have the physical space in these hospitals but if we don’t have the staff to provide the medical care that’s where we become concerned,” said Eads.

Initial deliveries of the COVID-19 vaccine are expected to arrive in the next few weeks but Denton County’s five hospitals were notably left off the list of those to be allocated vaccines.

Texas Health Resources, which has hospitals both in Denton County and across DFW – said it has been allocated a total of 5,850 vaccines. In an email, a spokesperson told NBC 5 “employees at Texas Health Denton, like caregivers at our other hospitals, will be vaccinated at the hospital.”

Judge Eads expects other hospital systems to take a similar course of action and distribute vaccines to Denton County facilities.

“Just because we didn’t get an initial allocation doesn’t mean that we are going to get left behind by any means, because we are going to be working with the sister hospitals here in the metroplex,” said Eads.  

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