Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, is urging people to take precautions to stop rising COVID-19 case numbers and avoid a very difficult winter ahead. NBCLX’s Clark Fouraker breaks down Dr. Fauci’s grim warning and his advice to prevent outbreaks.
Health officials in Dallas County reported 750 new COVID-19 cases Sunday along with the death of a Dallas woman in her 60s.
The woman had been critically ill at an area hospital and had underlying health conditions, according to Dallas County Health and Human Services.
The provisional 7-day average for new confirmed and probable cases for CDC week 43 was 652 per day, the highest daily average since July. Jenkins said the number of known school-aged children with COVID-19 doubled over the last four weeks to 587 cases and he cautioned that if people don't take steps to curb the spread of the virus, medical models indicate the county will once again see new cases numbers over 1,000 per day by Thanksgiving.
According to data from the state health department, hospitalizations in Texas Saturday are nearly 5,700.
Of the 750 cases reported, 704 were confirmed and 46 were probable, according to DCHSS. Officials said 363 of the cases came from the Texas Department of State Health Services electronic laboratory reporting system, of which four were from September.
The county has now accumulated 97,398 confirmed cases of the virus since testing began in March. The county said there have been 1,117 confirmed deaths attributed in the county to the virus, which, according to Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Dr. Philip Huang, is now the third leading cause of death in the county behind diseases of the heart and cancers.
COVID-19 TRACKING AND TESTING
"UT Southwestern Medical modelers tell us that we are on pace to have our highest number of average daily cases per week by Thanksgiving if we do not immediately go back to doing the things that we know how to do: wear our mask, avoid crowds and practice good social distancing and hygiene,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said in a written statement on Saturday.
Jenkins said that voting in person in Dallas County is safe and that the county has spent millions of dollars on disinfectants, plexiglass screens and other precautions to ensure that voters are safe. Voters can also see a live, color-coded map showing the approximate wait times at polling locations in Dallas County so that they can see which polls are least crowded and where voting can be done quickly. See the map here.
