Tarrant County Public Health is reporting 285 new cases of COVID-19 Thursday with four more deaths.
Of the 285 additional cases reported Thursday, 230 are confirmed while the other 55 are probable cases. The county has not said whether any of the 230 confirmed cases are from the Department of State Health Services 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 42,816 confirmed cases of the virus and 3,052 probable cases for a total of 45,868 cases.
The deceased Thursday include a man from Fort Worth in his 80s, a woman from Arlington in her 60s, a man from Azle in his 60s, and a man from Arlington in his 50s. All had underlying health conditions.
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COVID-19 TRACKING & TESTING
The county is also reporting another 253 estimated recoveries, bringing the total number of survivors to 40,330. There are currently an estimated 4,922 active cases in the county.
Of the county's cases, 71% 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 37%.
The health department reports 224 COVID-19 patients are currently occupying hospital beds in the county -- about 4% of capacity. A month ago, on Aug. 17 COVID-19 patients occupied about 10% 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.
