Pete Freedman
Dallas County Sets Another Record-High Daily Case Count, The Mavs Postpone A Game Following Team Outbreak And DFW’s Office Space Leasing Market Is Crashing.
The world is straight up acting a fool right now.
Honestly, it would objectively feel this way even if we weren’t still miring away in a pandemic. But, hey, we still very much are doing that!
Here’s the latest that you need to know locally on this front.
- On Tuesday, Dallas County reported 3,549 new positive cases and 14 deaths. This brings the county’s cumulative positive case count to 197,359 and its total death toll to 1,791. The positive case numbers represent a new record high for the county — by a count of more than 350 cases.
NEW: Dallas County Reports Record Highs Today for Cases and Hospitalizations
3,549 New Positive 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases and 14 Deaths, Including 570 Probable Cases pic.twitter.com/otUa4PrkK6— Clay Jenkins (@JudgeClayJ) January 12, 2021
- Reports to Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson from 25 hospitals showed 4,535 of 5,931 total hospital beds in Dallas were occupied as of Monday. Additionally, 750 of 920 ICU beds were occupied, while 475 of 1,038 ventilators were in use. As noted last week, perhaps take Johnson’s numbers with a grain of salt, as they’re vastly different from the figures reported by the county.
Here are the bed and ventilator capacity statistics as reported by 25 hospitals in the @CityOfDallas:
Total beds: 5931
Beds occupied: 4535 (76%)
Total ICU beds: 920
ICU beds occupied: 750 (82%)
Total ventilators: 1038
Ventilators in use: 475 (46%)— Mayor Eric Johnson (@Johnson4Dallas) January 11, 2021
- Because of COVID-19 surge, a hospital in Plano has set up an emergency overflow space in its lobby for treating non-coronavirus cases. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital stared using the space, which includes eight private tents, last week.
- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says the state has more than 2 million vaccine doses at the moment — with more on the way. Abbott touted this on Monday while speaking at a vaccine administration facility in Arlington that has already vaccinated more than 6,500 people. Mayor Johnson wants Abbott to send enough doses to Dallas — ASAP — for the county’s new Fair Park vaccination facility to start doling out 10,000 vaccines per week.
- You can get vaccinated right now in Dallas County if you fit certain conditions. If you’re a first responder, health care provider, over 65 years old or over 18 with an underlying medical condition, you can register for your injection here.
- Following an outbreak among players, the Dallas Mavericks’ Monday night game against the New Orleans Pelicans was postponed. At least four of the team’s players have tested positive. It is the first schedule shift for the team this season, but presumably not its last. Another NBA game was postponed on Sunday following an outbreak among the Miami Heat’s roster. The fate of the Mavericks’ Wednesday night game against the Charlotte Hornets is somewhat uncertain at this point. As noted last week, the Dallas Stars find themselves in a similar predicament with their own NHL’s season start having been postponed.
- Dallas-area offices space leases are down 4 million square feet in a year as a result of the pandemic. It’s the largest drop in office occupancy seen in these parts for some 30-plus years. The net loss on the year was twice what the market saw in the worst years of the Great Recession.
- The artistic director at Firehouse Theater has resigned following a COVID-19 outbreak scandal. Back in the fall, the Farmers Branch theater suddenly canceled a show after multiple people contracted the virus — apparently the result of the artistic director’s refusal to follow CDC-recommended pandemic protocols.
We’ll be back with more of the latest need-to-knows on the area coronavirus front on Friday.
Cover photo by Andreas Praefcke via WikiCommons.
