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DFW COVID cases, hospitalization rising
Doctors and officials are watching a rise in COVID cases in Dallas-Fort Worth. Some have concerns about the ability of at-home tests to catch the current strain of the virus.
DALLAS - North Texas hospitals and emergency rooms are seeing more COVID infections, along with respiratory illnesses like flu and RSV spreading as well.
Doctors say patients are coming in with some pretty bad symptoms.
The state just released some new data showing COVID cases going in the wrong direction.
Dr. Nick Karr says approximately 15 to 20 percent of patients seeking care at Citra Urgent Care's seven DFW locations are testing positive for COVID-19.
"Definitely seen an uptick in patients coming in with COVID symptoms. A lot of sore throats, cough, headache. And sicker than we've seen over the past let's say 6 months," said Dr. Karr.
He's concerned even more people could be infected with COVID and not even know it based on conversations he's had with his patients.
"They came in, 'I took a home test I don't know what's going on. It tested negative,' and sure enough they came here a good number of them end up testing positive," said Dr. Karr.
Dr. Karr believes at-home tests may not be able to accurately detect the ever-evolving variants of the virus.
The DFW Hospital Council is keeping a close eye on COVID cases too.
"You can see in the last 6 to 8 weeks we've continually had an uptick," said Stephen Love, the president of the DFW Hospital Council.
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The state reported more than 26,000 new cases last week.
That's up nearly 32% from the week before and the average of people hospitalized rose to nearly 1,200 from 1,100 the week before.
"Of the ones we've seen in North Texas and across the state it's really been a derivative of Omicron," said Love.
37 deaths were associated with COVID last week, up from 19 the week before.
Still, Love is optimistic with what is down the pipeline.
"We're also excited about this new vaccine that's hopefully going to come out in the next 3 to 4 weeks that will hopefully curtail some of the spread," he said.
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In the meantime, you may notice a return to masking in many public settings.
Dr. Karr's staff is doing it, not just for COVID, but RSV and flu.
"COVID is going to be here for the foreseeable future," said Dr. Karr.
Love says it will be interesting to watch the case numbers over the 10 to 14 days after Labor Day.
They think that travel and get-togethers over the holiday weekend could lead to a further uptick in cases.