Officials in Tarrant County on Sunday reported 688 new cases of COVID-19 and eight more coronavirus-related deaths. Three hundred forty-eight of the cases added were of test samples gathered more than 30 days ago due to a backlog in state reporting. Those cases were not previously reported by Tarrant County Public Health.
Seven of the eight deaths reported Sunday were in Fort Worth residents; the eighth was a North Richland Hills man in his 60s.
The people from Fort Worth who died after testing positive for COVID-19 were a woman in her 80s, two women in their 90s, a man in his 70s, two men in their 80s and one man in his 90s. All eight people had underlying health conditions, according to TCPH.
Tarrant County officials also reported 1,724 recoveries from the virus Sunday, bringing the countywide totals to 37,760 cases of COVID-19, 28,120 recoveries and 459 fatalities. There are an estimated 9,181 active cases of the virus in the county.
The county began to report both probable and confirmed cases last week at the request of the state health department. Probable cases, the county said, account for a variety of real-world situations and could highlight cases in the community that may otherwise go unreported. To date, the county has reported 35,997 confirmed cases of the virus and 1,763 probable cases.
The backlog in reporting will skew the county's seven- and 14-day averages, which rose to 557 and 622, respectively, on Sunday.
Saturday, Tarrant County reported more than 1,400 new cases of the coronavirus due to a massive backlog. Of those cases, 1,151 were of specimens gathered more than 30 days ago.
Of the county's cases, 69% of those who have died were over the age of 65. Those aged 25 to 44 make up the largest percentage of people with COVID-19 at 38%.
