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The number of people in Texas testing positive and hospitalized for COVID-19 has reached all-time highs since February, according to state data reported on Friday.
The Texas Department of State Health Services added 13,149 new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Friday and said nearly 6,000 people had been hospitalized with COVID-19.
The number of new confirmed cases is the highest single-day number reported since February 2, when the DSHS reported 13,570.
The seven-day average that day was 16,738, but the trend was down. That average was 6,442 on Friday and has more than tripled in the past two weeks: up from 2,047 on July 15.
The DSHS added that 295 older confirmed cases were reported as of Friday.
Locally, the seven-day moving average of new cases in each of North Texas’s four largest counties has at least quadrupled in the past four weeks. Dallas County went from a seven-day average of 132 on July 2 to 669 on Friday; County of Tarrant 81-543; Denton County from 31 to 131; and Collin County from 44 to 248.
The state also reported 2,744 additional probable cases of COVID-19 and 39 older probable cases on Friday.
“For the average person infected with COVID, it will infect eight other people,” said Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas School of Public Health. “And so that just challenges us even more and it’s going to be harder to contain.”
Texas also reported 57 deaths in people who tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday – the fourth consecutive day of at least 35 deaths – bringing the seven-day average to 36.4. Prior to Wednesday, the seven-day average of deaths had not exceeded 30 since July 17.
Statewide, 5,846 Texans were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Friday, the highest number since 5,912 on February 26.
In trauma service area E, which serves 19 counties, including the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area, 1,489 people have been hospitalized, five times the low of 289 recorded on June 4. TSA E has not had more than 1,400 people hospitalized with the coronavirus since February 27.
“The majority of patients are not vaccinated. As a benchmark, we had 368 COVID-19 patients in hospitals on June 30, so as you can see our hospitalizations have increased dramatically in 30 days,” said W. Stephen Love. , president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council.
He said that in TSA E there were 97 adult intensive care beds available and reported that the region had hospitalized 37 pediatric patients confirmed COVID-19, “which is about three times the volume of a month”.
In an executive order issued by Texas Governor Greg Abbott last October, once COVID-19 patients represented 15% or more of a hospital region’s capacity for seven consecutive days, a series of mandatory limits were activated. with some exceptions.
That order is no longer in effect and Abbott signed a new executive order on Thursday making it difficult for local leaders to implement masking or social distancing requirements.
The ASD E hospitalization rate on Friday was 8.87%. The only trauma service area to cross the 15% threshold this week was TSA R, which reported 15.1% on Thursday, but fell below the barrier on Friday. This region is in Southeast Texas.
As cases and hospitalizations increase, the rate of positive molecular and antigenic tests has skyrocketed since the end of June. The molecular positivity rate on Friday was 16.68% – double what it was on July 12 – and the antigen positivity rate was 7.82%, up from 2.05% on June 7.
As COVID-19 spreads by all available measures, doctors and public health officials are urging people to get vaccinated.
While “groundbreaking cases” have been reported, health officials continue to warn that they were expected, extremely rare and not a sign of vaccine failure.
“Vaccines continue to protect us against serious illness, which is fantastic. It means vaccines are really resistant to hospitalizations and death,” said Jetelina.
Some county leaders and doctors in North Texas have started implementing their own safety measures. Three hospital systems – Baylor Scott & White, Methodist Health System and Texas Health Resources – will require employees to receive the vaccine, and a Dallas County district judge has issued an order requiring face coverings to be worn at court facilities. county.
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