Dallas County Health and Human Services reported one death and 450 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19, today, Oct 5.  The county has reported 1,037 total deaths to date. The total confirmed cases are 84,245.

The total new cases today include 204 from Texas Department of State Health Services, of which 126 cases were from September and 78 for October.

The death being reported today in Dallas County is:

A woman in her 80’s who was a resident of the city of Grand Prairie. She expired in a healthcare facility.

The provisional 7-day average daily new confirmed and probable cases (by date of test collection) for CDC week 39 was 320, an increase from the previous daily average of 296 for CDC week 37. The percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 remains high, with 10.7% of symptomatic patients presenting to area hospitals testing positive in week 39.

A provisional total of 226 confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases were diagnosed in school-aged children (5 to 17 years) during CDC week 39 (week ending 9/26/2020), an increase from the previous week for this age group. The percentage of cases occurring in young adults aged 18 to 22 years has increased to 13% for the month of September.

Of the cases requiring hospitalization to date, more than two-thirds (66%) have been under 65 years of age, and over half reported having a chronic health condition. Diabetes has been an underlying high-risk health condition reported in about a third of all hospitalized patients with COVID-19.

Local health experts use hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and ER visits as three of the key indicators in determining the COVID-19 Risk Level (color-coded risk) and corresponding guidelines for activities during our COVID-19 response.

“Today we have 400 new confirmed cases and 50 new probable cases for a total of 450 new COVID-19 cases. Additionally, we have one death. Doctors are now seeing an uptick in Dallas County following the uptick they saw in surrounding counties over the last several weeks. With case numbers increasing, it’s more important than ever that you wear a mask and maintain six-foot distance, wash your hands, and avoid unnecessary crowds. COVID-19 does not discriminate between gatherings at your home or gatherings of a similar size at business establishments, so if you are around people in any indoor setting, please wear you mask and ask others to wear their mask one hundred percent of the time.

We are learning that the mask provides more protection that originally thought for the wearer. Early on, when the CDC recommended universal mask wearing, the slogan was ‘my mask protects you and your mask protects me,’ however, we now know with more research coming in, that the mask protects the wearer as well from higher doses of virus, that masking may result in a person who has been exposed not getting the virus, and in cases where they get the virus, their virus may be less severe because they breathe in less disease particles. So everyone please avoid those crowds and wear that mask. And together, we will get through this and come out stronger on the other side,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.

From Staff Reports • [email protected]