'Our Death Totals Should Begin To Decline' Says Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins On COVID-19
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Dallas County Health and Human Services reported 614 additional COVID-19 cases in Dallas County on Thursday, Feb. 25.
Of those, 488 are confirmed cases and 126 are probable cases.
"While these case numbers are higher than we've seen in the previous days, you should not be alarmed as all these numbers are artificially low due to the lack of testing in the week of the power outages," said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins in a statement. "In the coming days, we should get to a more accurate count of COVID positive cases. While that number will be higher than we've seen this week, it will be much lower than what we've seen at our highest. The trends are good and the numbers are moving in the right direction."
There is a cumulative total of 244,335 confirmed cases (PCR test).
There is a cumulative total of 34,773 probable cases (antigen test).
A total of 2,923 Dallas County residents have lost their lives due to COVID-19 illness after 24 more deaths were confirmed Thursday.
"Our death totals should begin to decline," said Judge Jenkins. "The number of deaths are a result of the number of COVID positive cases in the previous month. As the numbers of COVID positive cases are trending lower, the number of deaths will also decline."
DCHHS is providing initial vaccinations to those most at risk of exposure to COVID-19 and 45,643 first doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered at the Fair Park mega-vaccine clinic, which started operations on Monday, January 11.
Dallas County is currently administering second doses.
"Operations are running much smoother today at Fair Park as more people are catching up on their second dose and our two teams have now worked almost two days side-by-side," said Judge Jenkins.
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 6 was 657, which is a rate of 24.9 daily new cases per 100,000 residents.
The percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 remains high, with 19.7% of symptomatic patients presenting to area hospitals testing positive in week 6 (week ending 2/13/21).
During the past 30 days, there were 3,894 COVID-19 cases in school-aged children and staff reported from 628 separate K-12 schools in Dallas County.
One death of a teacher in a Dallas County K-12 school from COVID-19 was confirmed this past week.
A total of 466 children in Dallas County under 18 years of age have been hospitalized since the beginning of the pandemic, including 37 patients diagnosed with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in children (MIS-C).
Over 80% of reported MIS-C cases in Dallas have occurred in children who are Hispanic or Latino or Black.
The additional deaths reported Thursday include the following:
- A woman in her 50's who was a resident of the City of Lancaster. She had been hospitalized and did not have underlying high risk health conditions.
- A woman in her 50's who was a resident of the City of Dallas. She had been hospitalized and had underlying high risk health conditions.
- A woman in her 50's who was a resident of the City of Irving. She had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high risk health conditions.
- A man in his 50's who was a resident of the City of Richardson. He had been critically ill in 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. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high risk health conditions.
- A man in his 60's who was a resident of a long-term care facility in the City of Lancaster. He expired in an area hospital ED and had underlying high risk health conditions.
- A woman in her 60's who was a resident of the City of Dallas. She expired in an area hospital ED and had underlying high risk 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 60's who was a resident of the City of Dallas. He expired in hospice and had underlying high risk 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 high risk health conditions.
- A woman in her 60's who was a resident of the City of Dallas. She expired at home and had underlying high risk 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 70's who was a resident of the City of Dallas. He was found deceased at home and had underlying high risk health conditions.
- A woman in her 70's who was a resident of a long-term care facility in the City of Mesquite. She expired in an area hospital ED and had underlying high risk health conditions.
- A woman in her 70's who was a resident of the City of Desoto. She had been hospitalized and did not have underlying high risk health conditions.
- A woman in her 70's who was a resident of the City of Hutchins. 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 Duncanville. He expired in hospice 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 had underlying high risk health conditions.
- A man in his 80's who was a resident of a long-term care facility in the City of Dallas. He expired in hospice and had underlying high risk health conditions.
- A woman in her 80's who was a resident of a long-term care facility in the City of Cedar Hill. She 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 high risk health conditions.
- A man in his 80's who was a resident of a long-term care facility in the City of Richardson. He expired in a facility and had underlying high risk health conditions.
- A woman in her 80's who was a resident of the City of Irving. She expired at home and had underlying high risk health conditions.
- A man in his 90's who was a resident of the City of Dallas. He expired in a facility and had underlying high risk health conditions.