Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins has announced that the county had raised its COVID-19 “risk level” to yellow at the recommendation of the Public Health Committee (PHC) for Dallas County.
He posted a letter from the PHC stating that the county was experiencing an increase in positive COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and ICU admissions. However, the numbers are much lower than in previous waves of the disease, per the PHC’s own admission.
The letter pointed to data demonstrating a recent upward trend in infections. PHC stated that the county saw a 20-30% increase in positive cases in the last two weeks of June. Meanwhile, hospitalizations increased 36% in the two weeks leading up to July 6.
The virus had been spreading primarily among people over 65. However, now the UT Southwestern modeling data the PHC seems to be basing its decision upon shows significant increases among people aged 20-40 years old.
PHC cited record Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screenings over the July 4 weekend and the box office success of the children’s film Minions: The Rise of Gru as potentially aggravating “mobility” factors in the spread of COVID-19.
The committee advised that individuals eligible for a booster dose should try to receive their doses now instead of waiting for the fall. It further recommended that “high-risk” people wear masks indoors, especially at large social gatherings and airports.
For their part, Tarrant County officials also decided to raise the alarm, posting on Twitter: “The COVID-19 Community Level has changed to high. We recommend individuals wear a mask when indoors and social distance.”
Despite classifying the spread in Tarrant County as “high,” Tarrant County Public Health Director Vinny Taneja appeared even-tempered in his assessment of the current spread, telling NBC 5:
“When we were at a low, we were getting 60-70 cases a day. Now, it’s not unusual to see 600, 700 a day. Just in the matter of 10 or 12 weeks, we have really turned around. On a high day, I think I’ve seen recently as high as 1,300 reported. It’s not as bad as we saw last year in July or even when we saw a huge surge in December, January. That was pretty bad.”
While the density of recent cases is nothing like the Delta variant, two sub-variants of Omicron are those most prevalent amid the North Texas spread, appearing to be more transmissible than the original Omicron variant.
