Alec Spicer
The First Doses Of Pfizer’s Vaccine Are Being Administered To North Texas Hospital Workers, Tarrant County Reaches A Grim Milestone And More.
Since we last checked in, there has finally been a light at the end of tunnel: Vaccines have arrived in North Texas and are being given to healthcare workers. This news comes as a much needed reprieve as Dallas County — along with its neighboring counties — are seeing some of the darkest days of this pandemic.
Nationally, the pandemic-related news is especially harrowing, as reports from Johns Hopkins University show that COVID-19 kills more than one person per minute in the U.S.
The vaccine might be giving us all a sigh of relief, this shit is far from over — Dr. Anthony Fauci says Americans won’t have achieved “her immunity” until late spring or early summer 2021.
We’re almost out of the woods, though. Hang in there, mask up and keep that social distance, y’all.
- On Monday, Dallas County reported 1,519 new confirmed cases and 6 deaths. This brings the total case count to 146,042 since the pandemic began, while the cumulative death toll is now 1,385. Additionally, the county reported 180 probable cases.
NEW: Dallas County Reports 1,699 New Positive 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases and 6 Deaths
Including 180 Probable Cases pic.twitter.com/1W0GQU38lv— Clay Jenkins (@JudgeClayJ) December 14, 2020
- Reports on Monday from 25 Dallas hospitals showed 4,290 of 5,910 beds were occupied. Additionally, 726 of 934 total ICU beds were occupied.
Here are the bed and ventilator capacity statistics as reported by 25 hospitals in the @CityOfDallas:
Total beds: 5910
Beds occupied: 4290 (73%)
Total ICU beds: 934
ICU beds occupied: 726 (78%)
Total ventilators: 1004
Ventilators in use: 407 (41%)— Mayor Eric Johnson (@Johnson4Dallas) December 14, 2020
- Parkland Memorial Hospital employees will be given the Pfizer vaccine beginning on Tuesday. The hospital, which has been at the center of COVID-19 testing in Dallas County since the pandemic began, plans to vaccinate about 6,000 employees in the next 11 days. Texas is expected to receive nearly 225,000 Pfizer vaccines this week with most being prioritized for healthcare workers first. On Monday, Methodist Dallas Medical Center was the first hospital in the area to obtain the vaccine, administering it to a 51-year-old woman who cleans rooms in the emergency department at the hospital.
- The week ending December 12 was the deadliest week for illnesses related to COVID-19 in Dallas County thus far, according to County Judge Clay Jenkins. North Texas also saw its highest daily average of new reported cases since the pandemic began.
- Tarrant County surpassed 1,000 COVID-related deaths on Monday. The grim milestone for the county comes after it saw its fourth day in a row of 20 or more deaths. The county is also seeing an all-time pandemic high in hospitalizations with 958 patients as of Monday.
- As of Monday, Denton County only had four ICU beds available. The Denton Record-Chronicle reports that the majority of the county’s 81 adult ICU beds are currently occupied by patients with COVID-19. The remaining number of ICU beds is down by one from last week’s five remaining beds.
- More Texans are signing up for the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare. According to the Dallas Morning News, Texans are signing up for the ACA at a higher pace than ever before. Texas leads the U.S. in number of uninsured people, and as millions have lost their health insurance in 2020 due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic, many are looking to the program for coverage.