Tarrant County Public Health is reporting 168 confirmed new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday with five new deaths.
The latest deaths include a woman from Bedford in her 90s, a woman from Watauga in her 70s, a man from Fort Worth in his 60s, a man and woman from Arlington in their 50s. All had underlying health conditions.
Of the 199 additional cases reported Wednesday, data from the county health department indicates 168 cases are confirmed while 31 cases are probable.
The county began reporting both probable and confirmed cases earlier this month 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 38,451 confirmed cases of the virus and 2,079 probable cases for a total of 40,530 cases.
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The county's 7-day average of cases, including both confirmed and probable, dropped for the eighth straight day to an average of 244 cases per day; after snapping a streak of eight straight days of declines on Tuesday, the 14-day average again dropped from 426 per day to 411 per day.
The county is also reporting another 1,503 new estimated recoveries, bringing the total number of survivors to 34,173. There are currently an estimated 5,833 active cases in the county.
Of the county's cases, 70% 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%.
The health department reports 314 COVID-19 patients are currently occupying hospital beds in the county -- about 6% of capacity. A month ago, on July 26 COVID-19 patients occupied about 12% of Tarrant County hospital beds.
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.
