Medical Model Indicates Dallas County Could See 2K Coronavirus Cases Per Day Before Thanksgiving
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Dallas County Health and Human Services reported 767 additional positive COVID-19 cases in Dallas County on Friday, Nov. 13.
Among them are 499 confirmed cases and 268 probable cases.
There is a cumulative total of 106,287 cases (PCR test), including 1,140 confirmed deaths.
There is a cumulative total of 9,596 probable cases (antigen test), including 20 probable deaths.
The additional death reported Friday was a Dallas woman in her 40s who had underlying high risk health conditions.
"Our compliance as a community has dropped in the latest medical model from 63% to 56%," explained Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins in a statement. "This raises our R-naught score or replication factor from 1.09% to 1.25%. This is a dramatic increase in the spread and replication of COVID."
Judge Jenkins said this calls for swift action.
On Thursday, he asked businesses to institute telecommuting to the fullest extent possible.
Judge Jenkins encourages people to avoid crowds, including forgoing Black Friday shopping in person and only celebrating Thanksgiving with people under the same roof.
"It won't always be like this but it will be like this for a little while longer. According to the DFW Hospital Council we are already at 94% of our peak hospital census from July and staring down the barrel of a medical model that indicates without drastic change we'll be above 2,000 cases per day on average before Thanksgiving. Now is the time to turn it around. The decisions you make today will determine the numbers in the coming days. Everyone, we've done it before and we can do it again. North Texas is up to the challenge but we've got to wear the mask and avoid the crowds and renew our unselfish commitment to each other and to public health," said Judge Jenkins.
7K Texans Hospitalized With Coronavirus For 1st Time Since August
The provisional seven-day average of daily new confirmed and probable cases (by date of test collection) for CDC week 44 has increased to 779, which is a rate of 30.0 daily new cases per 100,000 residents.
The percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 remains high, with 14.8% of symptomatic patients presenting to area hospitals testing positive in week 44 (week ending 10/31/20).
A provisional total of 608 confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases were diagnosed in school-aged children (5 to 17 years) during CDC week 44, an almost two-fold increase from the numbers of children diagnosed in this age group 4 weeks earlier (CDC week ending 10/3/2020).
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.
Of the total confirmed deaths reported to date, about 24% have been associated with long-term care facilities.
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