The Tarrant County Public Health Department adds another 700 cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus along with four more deaths Friday.
The six latest victims announced Friday include a woman from Southlake in her 80s, a woman from Bedford in her 80s, a woman from Grapevine in her 70s and a man from Arlington in his 70s. All had underlying health conditions.
Of the 700 additional cases reported Friday, data from the county health department indicates there are 611 more confirmed cases than the day before and 89 more probable cases. It is not clear if any of the new cases came from the Texas DSHS backlog.
The county began reporting both probable and confirmed cases in August 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 60,283 confirmed cases of the virus and 6,527 probable cases for a total of 66,810 cases.
The latest influx of cases sent Fort Worth over the 30,000 case mark on Thursday. The suburbs are continuing to see increases as well. Arlington, with 11,683 cases since March, has added nearly 600 new cases since Monday. Hurst climbed about 1,000 cases this week, Keller is very close to that mark with 996 on Friday and both Mansfield and North Richland Hills topped 1,600 cases each recently.
COVID-19 TRACKING u0026amp; TESTING
The county is also reporting another 455 estimated recoveries, bringing the total number of survivors to 52,999. There are currently an estimated 13,073 active cases in the county.
Of the county's cases, 71% of those who have died were over the age of 65 even though they only make up 10% of the cases. Those aged 25 to 44 make up the largest percentage of people with COVID-19 at 37%.
The health department reports 527 COVID-19 patients are currently occupying hospital beds in the county -- about 10% of capacity and nearly twice what it was a month ago when it was at 6%.
With 738 deaths now attributed to the virus, COVID-19 is now projected to be the third leading killer of Tarrant County residents behind cancer and heart disease and is expected to surpass the annual total for stroke later this year.
With the recent changes to their reporting system, Tarrant County Public Health said changes have also been made to their online dashboard, most notably to the Case Counts tab and Cases by Location tab. The Case Counts tab now includes cases reported by week, including both probable and confirmed, while the Cases by Location tab includes a map showing the 30-day average infection rate by ZIP code.
