COVID-19 Cases Increasing Among North Texas First Responders: 'We Are Not Worried At The Moment'
NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Shortages in first responders due to COVID-19 cases have led to some cities to declare a crisis situation.
That is not the case in North Texas, but there is a trend of higher case counts.
The general consensus from fire administrators in the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth is, they are monitoring a trend of rising cases among their ranks very closely.
"We are seeing numbers rise, we are not real worried at the moment but if they continue to rise we will have to look closer at what we are going to do," said Mike Drivdahl of the Fort Worth Fire Department.
Drivdahl said the spike in his department started around Christmas.
He said firefighters test for COVID-19 before each shift, and they are currently seeing about five positive cases per day.
That makes up a little more than 2% of around 240 firefighters on duty any given day.
"We are taking some firefighters that are in some non-operational positions and putting them back into the field," he said. "We are doing some mandatory hire backs."
Drivdahl said those moves have allowed FWFD to keep all of their trucks operational and fully staffed.
In Dallas, fire officials said right now, 165 of their firefighters are out with COVID-19. That's around 7% to 8% of the department.
The trend there is being described by administrators as the highest case count they've had since the pandemic began, however they also report no units have been taken out of service and they are not riding short on their trucks either.
MedStar in Tarrant County said so far they have not experienced a significant drop in personnel.