Dallas County commissioners continued to grapple with their role in the coronavirus pandemic now that COVID-19 vaccines are widely available and federal authorities have eased most of the safety precautions for fully vaccinated Americans.
On Tuesday, commissioners John Wiley Price and J.J. Koch renewed concerns that the public was getting mixed messages as the county continues to use a color-coded warning system that was created more than a year ago.
At the time, the county was averaging a few hundred new cases a day — about double the current average and a fraction compared to the spike the region saw earlier this year after the holidays.
According to the county’s system — managed by the health department and a panel of medical experts who have consulted with Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins since nearly the beginning of the pandemic last March — residents who are not vaccinated should use “extreme caution” and limit almost all activities outside of their homes.
“We’ve been at ‘extreme caution’ and holding,” said Price, who represents southern Dallas County. “Just from the optics or the psyche — maybe no one is paying attention but us.”
Dallas County was one of the first local governments in Texas and the U.S. to create a color-coded warning system to share the perceived risk of catching the virus — especially before vaccines were developed and approved for emergency use. The county also produced a long list of activities to avoid based on the corresponding risk. For example, under the current threat level, residents should not eat indoors at restaurants, and they should avoid non-essential travel and gatherings outside the family.
The guidance has not been updated even after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month eased its mask requirements and suggested fully vaccinated people can return to pre-pandemic lives without worry.
Instead, the county has said the color-coded system and guidance only applies to people who are not fully vaccinated.
The county unveiled the system last summer after Gov. Greg Abbott started to relax statewide rules meant to contain the pandemic. Since then, the threat level has shifted from red to orange twice.
Dr. Philip Huang, Dallas County Health Department director, told commissioners he had hoped to announce a shift from orange to yellow — or “proceed carefully” — on Tuesday. However, goals set when the system was first established have not yet been met, he said.
“I hear you,” Huang told the commissioners. “But we don’t want to move the goal post.”
Among the metrics the county hopes to hit soon to lower the threat level from orange to yellow: a positivity rate below 5% from hospital-administered COVID tests and fewer than five new cases per 100,000 people. Huang said Parkland’s positivity rate is above 7%, and the number of new cases averages to about 5.25 per 100,000 people.
Koch, who represents northern Dallas County, likened the system to one created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Both outlived their usefulness because they were poorly managed, he said.
“This has to be seriously rethought if you want the public to take it seriously,” Koch said, pointing out that the system was created when vaccines were thought to be a long way off.
So far, more than 10 million Texans are fully vaccinated — including more than 916,000 Dallas County residents. More than half of all eligible Dallas County residents over the age of 12 have received at least one shot, according to state data. The number of newly vaccinated residents continues to slow despite the CDC approving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children as young as 12.
Jenkins said Friday that the county’s Fair Park vaccine hub will close in August.
The site is now open three days a week: Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Meanwhile, the county continues to open pop-up vaccine sites with mixed success. The county is expected to offer vaccines this weekend at the city’s LGBTQ Pride celebration at Fair Park and later this month at DeSoto’s Juneteenth celebration.
