Tarrant County reports 820 new COVID-19 cases, 2 deaths

FORT WORTH, Texas - Tarrant County reported 820 new COVID-19 cases and two more deaths Monday -- that includes cases from the holiday weekend.

It’s a continuation of a surge in the county and public health officials reiterated that it’s a dangerous trend.

“We’ve given enough education as people understand how this is working. The proof is in the pudding so to speak. The numbers are going up. If people can’t follow that instruction we are going to continue to see cases,” said Dr. Vinny Taneja, Tarrant County Public Health Director.

555 people are currently hospitalized for COVID-19, more than triple the number from a month and a half ago.

“That’s not good news. Even though we have capacity in the hospitals we don’t want to make it full with COVID. We want to leave that capacity for other illnesses,” Taneja said.

Dr. Rajesh Nandy of the University of North Texas Health Science Center is a primary source for analyzing the county’s covid-19 numbers. He notes a small stabilization from the last several days.

“We still have a large number of new cases, in terms of new cases and hospitalizations. Now if that number holds steady we can still handle the patients and treat them properly. The risk is if it keeps growing,” Nandy said.

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Nandy and Taneja say what happens next in terms of Tarrant County’s trend is squarely on the choices people make -- which hopefully includes wearing a mask while in public and making social distance a top priority.

“The concern for us remains that the trend is up. We don’t want the trend going up -- we want it to flatten it out,” Taneja said.

Tim Tarpley’s parents, who lived in Fort Worth, were hospitalized for COVID-19 a few weeks ago. On June 18, they both died within an hour of each other.

“The saddest thing in the world is dropping them off at the curb, them wheeling themselves into the emergency room with their cane or their walker and you just don’t get to see them again,” Tarpley said.

Tarpley tested positive while his parents were in the hospital.

“I get that from my dad, that never give up spirit. So I wasn’t worried about it taking me and I was careful around them,” Tarpley said.

He said his parents, ages 79 and 80, had underlying health conditions. Tarpley says his mother started showing symptoms days before she and her husband were hospitalized.

Health officials said numbers push Tarrant County’s total number of positive cases to 14,228 with 238 deaths. More than 6,000 have recovered.

MORE: Interactive map of Texas COVID-19 cases