Updated at 3:34 p.m.: revised to include state data.
Dallas County on Sunday reported 3,303 more coronavirus cases and six COVID-19 deaths.
The latest fatalities were a woman in her 40s, a man in his 50s, a man in his 60s, a man in his 80s, and a man in his 90s, all of whom were Dallas residents and had been hospitalized. The sixth victim was a Mesquite man in his 50s who had been ill at a hospital. All six victims had underlying health problems, the county said.
Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, Sunday’s COVID-19 report included cases from Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said.
“When you spread that out over the three days, it’s actually a lower number than we’ve been averaging for the last week and probably indicates less people getting tested as most testing facilities were closed Thursday and Friday,” Jenkins said.
Of the cases reported Sunday, 3,083 were confirmed and 220 were probable.
They raise the county’s total confirmed cases to 126,006 and probable cases to 12,090. The county has recorded 1,209 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 32 probable COVID-19 deaths.
The county announced it is counting only positive antigen tests (sometimes called rapid tests) as probable cases; a few antibody and “household” results were included previously.
Although other North Texas counties provide estimates for how many people have recovered from the virus, Dallas County officials do not report recoveries, noting that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not use that metric.
The county reported that during the Nov. 8-14 period, 1,282 school-age children tested positive for COVID-19.
More than two-thirds of all confirmed cases requiring hospitalization so far have been in people under 65, and diabetes has been an underlying condition in about a third of all hospitalized patients, according to the county.
The county’s provisional seven-day average of daily new confirmed and probable cases for the latest reporting period, Nov. 8-14, was 1,405 — a rate of 53.3 daily new cases per 100,000 residents. The figure is calculated by the date of the COVID-19 test collection, according to the county.
Dallas County doesn’t provide a positivity rate for all COVID-19 tests conducted in the area; county health officials have said they don’t have an accurate count of how many tests are conducted each day. But as of the county’s most recent reporting period, 17% of people who showed up at hospitals with COVID-19 symptoms tested positive for the virus. That’s an increase from 16.8% the previous reporting period.
The county said Sunday that 20 active “clusters” of cases in homeless shelters and group homes have been reported in the last 30 days, totaling 167 reported coronavirus cases. One facility in the last week had 81 confirmed cases, the county said.
Over the last 30 days, there have been 818 COVID-19 cases reported from 90 long-term care facilities, the county said Sunday. Of the cases, 29 people have died and 48 have been hospitalized.
Of the county’s total confirmed COVID-19 deaths, about 23% are associated with long-term care facilities.
Statewide data
Across the state, 6,041 more cases and 48 COVID-19 deaths were reported Sunday. Of the 6,041 new cases, 163 are considered older cases by the state, including one in Ellis County and one in Kaufman County.
Texas has now reported 1,157,273 confirmed cases and 21,357 fatalities.
There are 8,634 COVID-19 patients in Texas hospitals, including 2,375 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Of all hospitalizations in the 19-county hospital region that covers the Dallas-Fort Worth area, 15.6% are COVID-19 patients, according to the state’s data. Sunday was the third day the state crossed the 15% threshold set by Gov. Greg Abbott in an Oct. 7 executive order that states businesses must scale back from 75% to 50% capacity if they are in a region where more than 15% of hospital beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients for seven days in a row.
The seven-day average positivity rate statewide, based on the date of test specimen collection, was 11.1% as of Saturday. State health officials said using data based on when people were tested provides the most accurate positivity rate.
The state also provides a positivity rate based on when lab results were reported to the state; that rate stood at 11.33% as of Saturday.
Officials previously calculated Texas’ coronavirus positivity rate by dividing the most recent seven days of new positive test results by the most recent seven days of total new test results. By that measure, the positivity rate is now 9.4%, according to the state dashboard.
A spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services has said positivity rate data based on lab results and new cases probably will be phased out but is being provided for transparency and continuity purposes.
Tarrant County
Tarrant County reported 1,305 coronavirus cases and five new deaths Sunday.
The latest deaths include a man in his 90s and a man in his 70s from Fort Worth, a woman in her 80s and a man in his 70s from Arlington, and a man in his 60s with an unknown address. All had underlying health problems.
The newly reported cases bring the county’s total to 97,294, including 86,052 confirmed cases, 11,242 probable cases and 68,950 recoveries. The death toll stands at 843.
Collin County
The state added 626 coronavirus cases in Collin County on Saturday, bringing the county’s total to 26,192. One new COVID-19 fatality also was reported, bringing the death toll to 253.
No details about the latest victim were available.
According to state data, the county has 3,295 active cases and has logged 22,897 recoveries.
COVID-19 hospitalizations total 276, according to the county’s dashboard.
Denton County
Denton County officials have said they will no longer report new coronavirus data on Sundays.
As of Saturday, the county had reported 23,276 cases, including 5,523 that were active and 17,605 that were recoveries. The death toll stood at 148.
Other counties
The Texas Department of State Health Services has taken over reporting for these other North Texas counties. In some counties, new data may not be reported every day.
CORRECTION: This story originally included the wrong date range for which 1,282 children tested positive and the seven-day average of new and confirmed cases. The correct date range is Nov. 8-14.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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