Dallas County reports 1,458 more coronavirus cases, 1 death; Tarrant County adds 1,523 cases

Updated at 5:54 p.m.: Revised to include the latest Denton County figures.

Dallas County on Sunday reported 1,458 more cases of the coronavirus, all considered new. One new death from COVID-19 has also been reported.

The latest victim was a Dallas man in his 50s who had been gravely ill in a hospital, officials said.

Of the new cases reported on Sunday, 1,281 are confirmed and 177 are probable. The newly reported cases bring the total number of confirmed cases in the county to 109,022 and probable cases to 9,862. The county has recorded 1,142 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 and 20 probable deaths.

The county recently announced that it only counts positive antigen tests (sometimes called rapid tests) as probable cases; some results on antibodies and “households” have been included previously.

While other counties in North Texas provide estimates of how many people have recovered from the virus, Dallas County officials are not reporting recoveries, noting that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not use this metric.

Health officials are using hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions and emergency room visits as key metrics to track the real-time impact of COVID-19 in the county. The county will publish its hospitalization data next Tuesday.

The county’s provisional seven-day average of new confirmed and probable daily cases for the last reporting period, Nov. 1-7, was 958. The figure is calculated based on the date COVID-19 tests were collected, depending on the county.

The county reported that in the same week, 843 school-aged children tested positive for COVID-19, an increase of more than 200 from the previous week.

Dallas County does not provide positivity rates for all COVID-19 tests performed in the region; County health officials said they did not have an accurate tally of how many tests were done each day. But as of the county’s latest reporting period, 15.3% of people who presented to hospitals with symptoms of COVID-19 have tested positive for the virus. This is an increase from the previous baseline period, where 15% of these patients tested positive.

More than two-thirds of all confirmed cases requiring hospitalization so far are in people under the age of 65, and diabetes is an underlying condition in about one-third of all hospitalized patients, according to the county.

Of the total number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the county, about 24% are associated with long-term care facilities.

Tarrant County

Tarrant County reported 1,523 coronavirus cases and one new death on Sunday.

Details on the latest victim were not immediately available.

The newly reported cases bring the county’s total to 82,015, including 72,809 confirmed cases, 9,206 probable cases and 61,617 recoveries. The death toll stands at 794.

According to figures on Sunday’s county dashboard, 726 people are hospitalized with the virus.

Denton County

Denton County officials said they would no longer report new coronavirus data on Sunday.

As of Saturday, the county had reported 19,573 cases, of which 3,867 were active and 15,564 were recoveries. The death toll stood at 142.

Writer Nataly Keomoungkhoun contributed to this report.