Dallas County Increases The Pandemic Threat Level Back To Red, The Texas Unemployment Rate Is Still Double What It Was Before The Pandemic Hit And More.

Remember last week when we talked about Tarrant County’s opting into opening bars?  On Wednesday, they joined Denton and Collin counties in doing just that. Meanwhile, Dallas County is still seeing a steady increase in cases again.

And to think we all thought things were finally getting better. Don’t let your guard down in 2020. Here’s a roundup of coronavirus updates in North Texas you might have missed this week:

  • Dallas County reported 581 additional cases and one new death on Thursday. This brings the total number of cumulative confirmed cases in Dallas County to 88,372 and the death toll to 1,059. Dallas County also reported 52 probable cases.

  • As of  Thursday, 4,389 of  5,851 total hospital beds were occupied, bringing the total occupancy to 75%. Additionally, 688 of Dallas’ 921 ICU beds are filled, and 365 ventilators are in use.

  • On Wednesday, Dallas County increased its coronavirus risk level from code orange to red. The red level urges people to take caution when leaving their homes and discourages all nonessential travel including haircuts, in-person dining and shopping. These risk assessment levels began in May and were written by public health officials, epidemiologists and infectious disease experts. This comes just six weeks after Dallas County decreased the risk level to orange for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.
  • Some Dallas organizations want to revive the tourism scene through large, in-person events. The Mecum Auto Auction will be bringing over 2,000 attendees from Thursday and Saturday to the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. This is the first event of this size since the beginning of the pandemic.
  •  Some North Texas high school students are going into quarantine. Nearly 1000 students and staff in Frisco ISD are quarantining after a positive COVID-19 case on a school campus. Frisco reported almost 240 student cases and 63 staff cases since mid-August. Frisco is not the only North Texas city with students in quarantine, however. Over 130 members of Alvarado High School’s band are in quarantine after two students and one staff member in the group tested positive.
  • As of last week, the Texas unemployment rate was still double that of a pre-pandemic rate. More than 43,000 Texas filed for unemployment as of last week. In total, about 3.6 million people have filed for unemployment relief since the beginning of the pandemic.
  • After more than a hundred days in the hospital, a McKinney patient is now discharged to recover at home. A 65-year-old man named Ceasar Ronavaz spent 103 days at Medical City McKinney after he received a positive diagnosis of COVID-19 in June. Twelve days after his positive test, Ronavaz had to check into to the hospital and spent over 80 days in the ICU. Celeste Giannelli, Ronavaz’s ICU nurse, played a large role in his recovery process and said that taking care of a patient is more than just their physical recovery, but also their emotional recovery. You truly love to hear it.
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