Health officials in Tarrant County reported Saturday three more deaths in people who contracted COVID-19 and 133 additional cases of the coronavirus, after back-to-back days with at least 225 new cases.
The three victims were a Mansfield woman in her 80s, a Hurst man in his 50s and an Arlington woman in her 80s, officials said. Two of the three had underlying health conditions, according to Tarrant County Public Health.
The 133 new cases raise the Tarrant County total to 7,253. The county also reported 57 more recoveries from the virus, bringing the total to 3,310.
New cases were reported in Arlington, Bedford, Benbrook, Edgecliff Village, Euless, Forest Hill, Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, Grapevine, Haltom City, Hurst, Mansfield, North Richland Hills, Saginaw, Westworth Village and unincorporated parts of the county.
Tarrant County Public Health said 197 of the 296 new cases reported Friday were due to a backlog in lab reporting.
“Walgreens, who is doing a lot of testing on their own, they’re dumping numbers to us and today,” Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley said. “In fact, of the 296 (cases reported by the county) they dumped 197 tests that came in just from Walgreens.”
Most cases in the backlog go back three weeks, but Tarrant County Public Health Director Vinny Taneja admitted a "handful" or so were cases from April.
The 296 cases reported Friday are the second-highest total reported by the county. The highest came on May 10 when 485 cases were reported -- most of which were among inmates at Federal Medical Center Fort Worh.
The county made note of the same possible issue when reporting 225 cases on Thursday, 166 cases on Wednesday and 219 cases on Monday.
