Wave of COVID-19 cases in North Texas leads to increase in hospitalizations

NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) — There's an influx in COVID-19 cases in North Texas. Right now, hospitals are reporting the biggest wave of cases in over three months. The increase in cases has also led to an increase in hospitalizations. 

"I would call it a wave. I would not classify this as a surge because we're running around 705-710 people daily in our hospitals with COVID," Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council President and CEO Stephen Love said. 

Love said the Dallas-Fort Worth area is seeing its highest numbers of COVID-19 cases since early March. 

"Our overall occupancy in hospitals are running approximately 91%, which is pretty high," Love said. "In our ICU units, COVID now counts for 7.25% of the patients and that's up fairly significantly from where it was a month ago."

The majority of new cases we're seeing here in North Texas appear to be from the latest new subvairant of Omicron called BA.5. 

"The BA.5 [variant] is extremely contagious. Even if you've been vaccinated, you could contract it and test positive. But if you have been vaccinated and you're up on your boosters, the likelihood of you being hospitalized is greatly diminished," Love said. 

With cases on the rise the Dallas County Public Health Committee raised the COVID risk level to orange, which means extreme caution.

In a letter issued Saturday, the committee is recommending people mask up in public indoor settings. They're looking at aggressive efforts to improve COVID-19 vaccination and booster shot rates.

The Hospital Council is concerned about an increase in cases through at least the end of July.

"So we want people to be particularly careful. [We're] not trying to panic them, not trying to scare people, but just make them aware that this virus continues to grow," Love said. 

Love said he hopes to avoid a surge as we get into the Winter months.