Dallas County Health and Human Services reported six deaths and 1,239 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19, today, Oct 18 and yesterday, Oct. 17.  The county has reported 1,085 total deaths to date. The total confirmed cases are 89,987.

The county is also reporting a total of 4,580 probable cases and 13 probable deaths.

The total new cases in the past two days include 850 from Texas Department of State Health Services for June (4), July (8), August (26), September (6) and October (806).

The deaths being reported in Dallas County are:

A woman in her 30’s who was a resident of the City of Garland. She expired on an interstate airline flight and did have underlying high risk health conditions.

A woman in her 50’s who was a resident of the City of Glenn Heights. She had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high risk health conditions.

A man in 50’s who was a resident of the City of Dallas. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high risk health conditions.

A man in his 30’s who was a resident of the City of Garland. He expired in area hospital ED and had underlying high risk health conditions.

A woman in her 40’swho was a resident of the City of Dallas. She had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high risk health conditions.

A man in his 70’s who was a resident of the City of Dallas. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and did not have underlying high risk health conditions.

The city of Sachse did not update its case count this weekend.

The provisional 7-day average daily new confirmed and probable cases (by date of test collection) for CDC week 41 was 453, an increase from the previous daily average of 383 for CDC week 40. The percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 remains high, with 12.6% of symptomatic patients presenting to area hospitals testing positive in week 40.

A provisional total of 390 confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases were diagnosed in school-aged children (5 to 17 years) during CDC week 41 (week ending10/03/2020), an increase of 32% from the previous week for this age group.

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. There were 353 COVID-19 patients in acute care in Dallas County for the period ending on Thursday, October 15. The number of emergency room visits for COVID-19 like symptoms in Dallas County was 493 for the 24-hour period ending on Thursday, October 15, which represents around 18 percent of all emergency department visits in the county according to information reported to the North Central Texas Trauma Regional Advisory Council.

From Staff Reports • [email protected]