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EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) – The El Paso health department changed the way it calculates active cases, which led to a massive drop in that number on Wednesday morning.
There are currently 8,152 known active cases, 26,166 fewer than Tuesday.
“We’re just trying to streamline the system, to make sure the community – as well as all of the team members here – have their eyes on the right data to make recommendations going forward,” the fire chief said. Mario D’agostino, the chief of emergency operations for El Paso.
Previously, the health department would only mark a case as recovery if it was able to contact the infected person and confirm that they were free of symptoms.
Otherwise, that person would still be considered an active case for 55 days.
Today, the city has shortened that period to 28 days.
D’agostino said El Paso is now taking a similar approach to other major cities in Texas.
In the previous calculation system, El Paso was listed as having more than 34,000 active cases since mid-November.
Health director Angela Mora said the city has been working on this new system for a few weeks. She said it was often difficult for the health department to reach people who had been infected, and as a result, they would stay as an “active” case much longer than needed.
As for the situation of other figures, El Paso has reported five new virus-related deaths and 350 new cases.
The latest deaths include two men in their sixties, two men in their sixties and a woman in their sixties.
For a full overview of El Paso’s Covid-19 data, click here.
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