Dallas County reported 1,699 more coronavirus cases and six COVID-19 deaths Monday.
The latest victims include three Dallas residents — two women in their 60s and a man in his 70s. The other victims were a Richardson woman in her 60s, a Cedar Hill man in his 80s and a Garland man in his 90s. All had underlying health problems.
Monday marked the first day vaccines against the coronavirus were administered in North Texas, but experts cautioned that it will be months before immunizations will be available to all.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins urged residents to continue taking precautions against COVID-19.
“It is an exciting day for America and for Dallas County as the first COVID vaccines are being given today, but remember, as these 1,699 cases and six deaths illustrate, COVID is still with us,” he said in a written statement. “Last week was our deadliest week, and we are currently at our highest daily average of new COVID cases that we have seen thus far in the pandemic.”
Of the new cases reported Monday, 1,519 are confirmed and 180 are probable. The newly reported cases bring the county’s total confirmed cases to 146,042 and probable cases to 15,803. The county has reported a total of 1,385 coronavirus deaths, a combined figure for probable and confirmed deaths.
The county has said it is counting only positive antigen tests (sometimes called rapid tests) as probable cases; a few antibody and “household” results were included previously.
Although other North Texas counties provide estimates for how many people have recovered from the virus, Dallas County officials do not report recoveries. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not use that metric.
Health officials use hospitalizations, intensive-care admissions and emergency room visits as key metrics to track the real-time impact of COVID-19 in the county. The county will next report hospitalization data Tuesday.
The county’s provisional seven-day average of daily new confirmed and probable cases for the Nov. 29-Dec. 5 reporting period was 1,560, or 56.6 daily new cases per 100,000 residents — the highest rate the county has seen since the start of the pandemic. The figure is calculated by the date of the COVID-19 test collection, according to the county.
Dallas County doesn’t provide a positivity rate for all COVID-19 tests conducted in the area; county health officials have said they don’t have an accurate count of how many tests are conducted each day. But as of the county’s most recent reporting period, 21.6% of people who showed up at hospitals with COVID-19 symptoms tested positive for the virus. That’s nearly the same as the previous reporting period, when 21.7% such patients tested positive.
Statewide data
Across the state, 9,704 more cases and 26 COVID-19 deaths were reported Monday. Texas has now reported 1,481,612 total cases and 23,937 fatalities.
Of the new cases, 8,771 were confirmed and 804 were probable. The state has reported 1,337,096 confirmed cases and 144,516 probable cases.
The state also added 128 older confirmed cases and one older probable case that were recently reported by labs.
There are 9,304 COVID-19 patients in Texas hospitals, including 2,674 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. On Monday, 17.09% of patients in the hospital region covering the Dallas-Fort Worth area were COVID-19 patients.
The seven-day average positivity rate statewide for molecular tests, based on the date of test specimen collection, was 12.4% as of Sunday. State health officials said using data based on when people were tested provides the most accurate positivity rate.
For antigen tests, the positivity rate for the same period was 7.9%.
Tarrant County
Tarrant County reported 22 new COVID-19 deaths Monday, pushing its toll over 1,000. County officials have announced at least 20 fatalities on each of the last four days, and 129 in the last seven days.
The county also added 1,269 coronavirus cases.
Ten of the latest victims who died lived in Fort Worth — five men in their 60s, two men in their 70s, two women in their 80s and a woman in her 90s.
The remaining 12 victims were spread across the county. They include a Hurst man in his 50s, a Mansfield man in his 60s, two men from unincorporated Tarrant County in their 70s, two Euless men in their 70s, a Saginaw woman in her 80s, a North Richland Hills woman in her 80s, an Arlington woman in her 80s, a man and woman from Sansom Park in their 80s and a Keller woman in her 90s.
All but five of the victims had underlying health problems.
The newly reported cases bring the county’s total to 120,899, including 106,691 confirmed cases, 14,208 probable cases and 87,921 recoveries. The death toll stands at 1,104.
According to Monday’s numbers on the county dashboard, 958 people are hospitalized with the virus.
Collin County
The state added 586 confirmed coronavirus cases to Collin County’s total Monday, bringing the tally to 32,868. No new COVID-19 fatalities also were reported, leaving the county’s death toll at 300.
According to state data, the county has 4,006 active cases of the virus and has recorded 28,862 recoveries.
The county’s coronavirus dashboard provides only total hospitalizations, now at 416. That’s an increase of 57 in the past day alone and a record for the entire pandemic.
Denton County
Denton County reported 839 coronavirus cases — of which 686 are active — but no new deaths Monday.
The newly reported cases bring the county’s total to 30,725, including 9,039 that are active and 21,521 that are recoveries. The death toll stands at 165.
The newly reported cases also raise the county’s total molecular cases to 25,865, while antigen cases stand at 4,860.
There are 149 COVID-19 patients hospitalized — matching the single-day high reported Dec. 4 — according to the county’s data. Just four of the county’s 81 ICU beds are available.
Other counties
The Texas Department of State Health Services has taken over reporting for these other North Texas counties. In some counties, new data may not be reported every day.
The latest numbers are:
- Rockwall County: 3,888 confirmed cases, 42 deaths.
- Kaufman County: 6,136 confirmed cases, 98 deaths.
- Ellis County: 8,643 confirmed cases, 138 deaths.
- Johnson County: 7,210 confirmed cases, 127 deaths.
