COVID-19

Dallas County Judge Urges Vaccinations as COVID-19 Infections Climb

New cases of COVID-19 steadily increase, the county says mainly among those who are not vaccinated

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Dallas County said data over the last three months shows cases of COVID-19 are beginning to creep up, and that new cases are occurring mainly among those who are not vaccinated.

"What we're really seeing is the beginning of a new wave of the pandemic, but among unvaccinated people," said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.

According to a county statement, which is given every day other than the weekends with COVID-19 updates, "About 82% of COVID-19 cases diagnosed in Week 27 were Dallas County residents who were not fully vaccinated. In Dallas County, 1,338 cases of COVID-19 breakthrough COVID-19 infections in fully vaccinated individuals have been confirmed to date, of which 105 (8%) were hospitalized and 14 have died due to COVID-19."

"We are seeing some pretty serious illness amongst the people who are unvaccinated. We're seeing those numbers go up, so as an example, the average number of new cases a week ago each day was 125 cases. This last week it was 184 cases so that's a big jump," said Jenkins.

"It's not those numbers that we saw six months ago, but we're on track to really grow and there's a model from UT Southwestern that says our numbers will be as high as they've ever been in a few months if we don't turn this around."

Dallas County Health and Human Services said about 58% of Dallas County residents above the age of 12 have at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Texas Department of State Health Services also noted a rise in cases and serious illness amongst those who haven't had a shot.

After six months, the mega vaccination site at Fair Park in Dallas closed after about half a million people had received their vaccine from the site.

While there is more accessibility to vaccines via health care providers and pharmacies, Jenkins said there will be pop-up events to get people shots.

"There's no good reason to not protect yourself, your family, your community, ultimately your country from getting COVID, by simply getting your free vaccine," said Jenkins.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said while data showed COVID-19 vaccines continue to work well in most people, there are 'breakthrough' cases.

On its website, the CDC mentions in a Q&A that, "Large-scale clinical studies found that COVID-19 vaccination prevented most people from getting COVID-19. Research also provides growing evidence that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna) offer similar protection in real-world conditions. While these vaccines are effective, no vaccine prevents illness 100% of the time. For any vaccine, there are breakthrough cases."

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