Dallas County Health and Human Services reported four deaths and 229 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 on May 7. The county has reported 3,925 total deaths to date. The total confirmed cases are 258,440.

The county is also reporting a total of 41,821 probable COVID cases.

Dallas County Health and Human Services is providing initial vaccinations to those most at risk of exposure to COVID-19. Since starting vaccinations, 450,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered at the Fair Park mega-vaccine clinic, which started operations on Monday, January 11.  First and second doses at Fair Park will be available on Saturday.

The additional deaths reported include:

A woman in her 60’s who was a resident of a long-term care facility in the City of Mesquite. She had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high risk health conditions.

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

A woman in her 80’s who was a resident of the City of Dallas. She was hospitalized and had underlying high risk health conditions.

A man in his 90’s who was a resident of a long-term care facility in the City of Grand Prairie. He expired in an area hospital ED and had underlying high risk health conditions.

The city of Sachse is only reporting active and recovered/removed cases according to city officials. According to the city’s website, as its staff receives information from the city’s health authority, updates will be provided. The last update was May 7 and shows 33 active cases in the city, 27 in Dallas County and 6 in Collin County.

One death reported today was of a person who received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine but had several underlying high risk health conditions. To date, a total of 61 cases of the SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.1.7; six B.1.429 variants; two B.1.526 variants; one P.1 variant; and one P.2 variant have been identified in residents of Dallas County. Five have been hospitalized with 3 requiring intensive care unit admission, and one has died. Seven had history of recent domestic travel outside of Texas. One case of B.1.1.7 is a likely instance of reinfection with COVID-19, occurring over 6 months after an initial PCR-confirmed infection. The provisional seven-day average of daily new confirmed and probable cases (by date of test collection) for CDC week 16 was 207, which is a rate of 7.9 daily new cases per 100,000 residents. Of symptomatic patients presenting to area hospitals in week 16 (week ending 4/24/21), 9.5% of respiratory specimens tested positive SARS-CoV-2.

During the past 30 days, there were 1,064 COVID-19 cases in school-aged children and staff reported from 390 separate K-12 schools in Dallas County.

There are currently 28 active long-term care facility outbreaks. A cumulative total of 4,361 residents and 2,455 healthcare workers in long-term facilities in Dallas have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Of these, 1,081 have been hospitalized and 769 have died. About 20% of all deaths reported to date have been associated with long-term care facilities. Eleven 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 593 residents and 220 staff members in congregate-living 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.

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 183 COVID-19 patients in acute care in Dallas County for the period ending on May 6. The number of emergency room visits for COVID-19 like symptoms in Dallas County was 409 for the same time-period, which represents around 15 percent of all emergency department visits in the county.

Updated UTSW forecasting reflects a minor decrease within their model with hospitalizations between 140-220 and daily case counts of 210 by May 24th.

From Staff Reports • [email protected]