'The Numbers Continue To Improve' Says Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins On COVID-19 Cases, Deaths
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Dallas County Health and Human Services reported 215 additional COVID-19 in Dallas County on Wednesday, March 17.
Of those, 182 are confirmed cases and 33 are probable cases.
There is a cumulative total of 250,028 confirmed cases (PCR test).
There is a cumulative total of 37,423 probable cases (antigen test).
A total of 3,330 Dallas County residents have lost their lives due to COVID-19 illness after 10 more deaths were confirmed Wednesday.
Dallas County Health and Human Services (DCHHS) is providing initial vaccinations to those most at risk of exposure to COVID-19 and over 174,000 total doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered at the Fair Park mega-vaccine clinic, which started operations on Monday, January 11. Vaccine operations for both first and second doses at Fair Park will continue through Saturday.
"Today we report an additional 215 new COVID positive cases and 10 deaths. The numbers continue to improve," said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins in a statement. "Currently our R-naught factor, which is the replication factor of current COVID cases, is .69. This means that for every 100 cases of COVID in the community now, they will be replaced by 69 cases. This number ties for the steepest drop we've seen since the beginning of COVID. Also, our positivity rate at hospitals is below 5%. This number was many multiples of that only two months ago."
To date, a total of eleven cases of the SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.1.7 and one case of a B.1.526 variant have been identified in residents of Dallas County.
One was hospitalized and five had history of recent domestic travel outside of Texas.
The provisional seven-day average of daily new confirmed and probable cases (by date of test collection) for CDC week 9 was 291, which is a rate of 11.0 daily new cases per 100,000 residents.
The percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 remains high, with 9.9% of symptomatic patients presenting to area hospitals testing positive in week 9 (week ending 3/6/21).
"The reason for the steady improvement is vaccination, and while the State continues to shortchange Dallas and Tarrant counties on their vaccinations, thousands of people in both counties are getting vaccinated each and every day. This is also happening in Denton and Collin counties, and on a lesser scale, in all of our North Texas counties. You do not need to live in the county where you are vaccinated. Sign up to be vaccinated in any place you're willing to drive," said Judge Jenkins.
The additional deaths reported Wednesday include the following:
- A woman in her 30'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 man in his 50's who was a resident of a long term care facility in the City of Desoto. 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 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 had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high risk health
- 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 had been hospitalized 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 70'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 70's who was a resident of the City of Seagoville. 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 critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high risk health conditions.