Dallas County Health and Human Services reported eight deaths and 939 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 for Feb 13. The county reported 2,612 total deaths to date. The total confirmed cases are 240,023.

The county is also reporting a total of 33,517 probable COVID cases.

Dallas County Health and Human Services is providing initial vaccinations to those most at risk of exposure to COVID-19. As of yesterday, 43,823 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered at the Fair Park mega-vaccine clinic, which started operations on Monday, January 11.

The additional deaths reported include:

A man in his 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 woman in her 50’s who was a resident of the City of Desoto. She had been critically ill in an

an area hospital and had underlying high risk health conditions.

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

A woman in her 60’s who was a resident of the City of Dallas. She had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying health conditions.

A man in his 60’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 80’s who was a resident of the City of Dallas. He had been hospitalized and had underlying high risk health conditions.

A man in his 80’s who was a resident of the City of Dallas. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying health conditions.

A woman in her 90’s who was a resident of the City of Dallas. She had been hospitalized and had underlying health conditions.

The city of Sachse has reported 1,991 COVID-19 cases through Friday. Their next update is expected to be Tuesday, Feb 16.

Four cases of the SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.1.7 have been identified in residents of Dallas County who did not have recent travel outside of the US. The provisional seven-day average of daily new confirmed and probable cases (by date of test collection) for CDC week 5 was 990, which is a rate of 37.6 daily new cases per 100,000 residents. The percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 remains high, with 21.1% of symptomatic patients presenting to area hospitals testing positive in week 2 (week ending 2/6/21).

During the past 30 days, there were 7,012 COVID-19 cases in school-aged children and staff reported from 713 separate K-12 schools in Dallas County. Reports state that 420 children in Dallas County under the age of 18 have been hospitalized since the beginning of the pandemic.

There are currently 103 active long-term care facility outbreaks. Accumulative total of 4,098 residents and 2,304 healthcare workers in long-term facilities in Dallas have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Of these, 894 have been hospitalized and 518 have died. About 22% of all deaths reported to date have been associated with long-term care facilities. Thirteen outbreaks of COVID-19 in congregate-living facilities (e.g. homeless shelters, group homes, and halfway homes) have been reported in the past 30 days. A cumulative total of 383 residents and 194 staff members in these types of facilities in Dallas have been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Of all confirmed cases requiring hospitalization to date, more than two-thirds have been under 65 years of age. Diabetes has been an underlying high-risk health condition reported in about a third of all hospitalized patients with COVID-19. New cases are being reported as a daily aggregate, with more detailed summary reports updated Tuesday and Friday evenings are available at: https://www.dallascounty.org/departments/dchhs/2019-novel-coronavirus/daily-updates.php

Local health experts use hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and ER visits as three of the key indicators as part of determining the COVID-19 Risk Level (color-coded risk) and corresponding guidelines for activities during our COVID-19 response. There were 686 COVID-19 patients in acute care in Dallas County for the period ending on Friday, February 12. The number of emergency room visits for COVID-19 like symptoms in Dallas County was 337 for the same time period, 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. Updated modeling from UTSW shows hospitalizations between 440-730 by February 23. County officials are encouraged by these decreases, but COVID hospitalizations are still having a substantial impact on our health care systems. Officials are also concerned about the variants and ongoing community spread and are encouraging masking, distancing and other protective measures if you are leaving your home.

“This week we end with a significant decrease in the average daily number of new COVID cases, down from 1,388 to 990. We report an additional eight deaths today, making this the second deadliest week of the pandemic response. As vaccinations continue to become more readily available, and if we can continue our resolve to make the small sacrifices of patriotism to keep ourselves, our community, and our country as strong as possible until we can reach herd immunity, we will defeat COVID much sooner than if we falter in our resolve.

The winter weather will obviously have an effect this week on the number of vaccines that we can get out. When we open again, we will focus on those whose 28-day appointments were on Friday (2/12). We are likely to be open for operations inside of the building at Fair Park similar to what we did yesterday until the weather permits the reopening of the drive-thru, hopefully next Saturday or Sunday. We will catch up with everyone’s second doses and that will be our focus until those second shots are caught up. We are working each day through the winter storms on a host of logistical issues to improve throughput times and amounts and are committed to ensuring that we vaccinate as many people as possible when the chance to do so arrives,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.

From Staff Reports • [email protected]