COVID-19 hospitalizations in North Texas rising at a concerning rate

DALLAS - The United States reported its second-highest number of new coronavirus cases on election day, with more than 91,000 infections.

The country’s five highest days of COVID-19 cases have all been recorded since Oct. 29. That affirms health experts’ warnings another surge may get worse.

In some states, not only is there a spike in cases but more and more children by percentage are getting the virus.

Here in North Texas, the number of new cases fell slightly in our area Tuesday but remains fairly high. There were more than 1,700 new cases in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties.

Just this week, Dallas County reported its highest number of new cases since the pandemic started but blamed that on a data dump. Still, health officials statewide say this could be just the start of an awful winter.

Dallas County specifically has seen an increase in the seven-day rolling average number of confirmed and probable cases with a percentage of positive tests above 15%.

“For the seventh week in a row, we’ve seen our average number of daily cases on the CDC weekly report increase, and for the last three weeks, it has increased more than 100 per week. It now stands at 733 average daily cases for the week ending October 24, the highest week on record since July,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.

Jenkins also said the number of positive COVID-19 cases in school-aged children is now twice as high as it was three weeks ago.

“We know what we need to do to curve the spread of this virus, we just need to summon the community resolve to do it. Increasingly we are seeing cases come from home gatherings and it’s very important to wear a mask and engage in social distancing. Avoid gatherings of people outside your home and find other ways to stay close,” he said.

In a county commissioners meeting Tuesday, Tarrant County health officials delivered the current outlook.

“Texas is starting to actually experience a surge, even though they were sort of slower,” said Tarrant County Public Health Director Dr. Vinny Taneja. “I think Tarrant County experienced that sooner than the rest of the state.”

In Tarrant County, public health officials say the community spread of COVID-19 is substantial, reporting 709 new cases on Wednesday. It’s rising back up toward peak levels the county saw in the summer.

It’s not happening in just Tarrant County.

The latest forecast from UT Southwestern shows a 122% jump in Dallas County hospitalizations and a 130% jump in Tarrant County since late September.

The data also shows infection rates are rising across all age groups and an alarming rise in older, more vulnerable age groups. The number of cases per 100,000 are also rising back up.

“And the models we look at show we’re going to have incremental increases,” said DFW Hospital Council CEO Stephen Love. “We’re concerned that we’re going to have a volume increase that will be kind of like a slow increase daily until we get to a pretty high number.”

Officials with the DFW Hospital Council say the concern is for upcoming holidays and colder weather which might lead to more socializing indoors with poor ventilation.

“We’re waiting to see what’s going to be the impact of Halloween,” Love said. “People moving about being mobile. We do have Thanksgiving coming up. We’ve got other holidays coming up, we have sporting events.”

Currently, the DFW Hospital Council says there are around 1,500 hospitalized COVID patients in area hospitals and, at this time, there is adequate bed space, staff and PPE. But local health officials are concerned the situation could get worse quickly if people don’t continue to be vigilant.

“We understand people want to move and get about. We understand the economy needs to be open. We understand schools need to be open,” Love said. “But we need to co-exist with COVID-19 until we get a vaccine.”

The DFW Hospital Council says area hospitals have taken on a small handful of patients from El Paso. But with the resources currently being sent to El Paso, they do not anticipate that number to dramatically rise.