Globe Life Field Plans To Allow Fan Attendance For The World Series, SMU’s Hope Hicks Is At The Center Of Donald Trump’s Positive COVID Results And More. 

A lot has happened since we last checked in. Like, a lot.

Here are some of the latest updates in coronavirus-related news in North Texas:

  • On Thursday, Dallas County paused reporting new cases. The Health and Human Services is updating its data platform and therefore will resume reporting data again later today. As of Wednesday, the most up to date counts in Dallas County were 82,410 total cumulative cases and 1,024 deaths.

  • As of Thursday, 4,350 out of 5801 hospital beds in Dallas were occupied, which brings the total occupancy to about 75 percent. 647 out of 921 ICU beds are occupied and 345 out of 997 of the ventilators are in use.

  • On Thursday, it was discovered White House aide Hope Hicks tested positive for COVID-19. The SMU alum tested positive for the virus hours before President Donald Trump announced he and wife Melania Trump also tested positive. Hicks was seen traveling the president the day before both of them tested positive.
  • A “new wave” of COVID-19 is here. After almost a 15 percent increase with the seven day average up from the previous week to this week, an infectious disease expert at UT Southwestern told D Magazine that this is the beginning of a new wave. UTSW projects that Dallas County will return to over a 1,000 new cases per day by the end of the year. Experts say the even the smallest increase in effectiveness of safety tools like social distancing and aggressive mask wearing could eliminate new daily cases.
  • Baseball fans are now officially allowed to come to the Global Life Field in Arlington. The stadium will be selling 11,500 tickets for its hosting of the World Series and will be operating at 28 percent capacity. The seating is grouped in “pods” of four seats, with each pod being six feet apart. The seats will be patterned like a checkerboard to ensure safety.
  • The Texas Department of State Health Services began to post new data on Texas public schools after retracting operations because of inaccuracies. The department, along with the Texas Education Agency, plans to release case numbers as reported by the school districts. However, the first attempt proved to have issues with data entry by the schools.
  • After 84 years, the Dallas Children’s Aquarium in Fair Park closed because of pandemic-related financial concerns. The Dallas Zoo, which oversees it, decided to close the first aquarium in Dallas because it was already operating at a loss. This of course, is just the latest of several permanent closures in Dallas, including the just-closed iconic nightclub Beauty Bar.
  • Tokyo Café chef Kevin Martinez is giving out free family meals in Fort Worth. The project started as helping the chef’s friends and colleagues put food on the table, but the success led to more meals for more people on a weekly basis. As of publish, the Japanese restaurant has given away upwards of 28,000 meals to those in need.  To see where the food is being distributed or to donate, check out the restaurant’s Facebook page.
  • Southwest Airlines could see furloughs and cuts. According to the Dallas Morning News, the CEO of Southwest Airlines said that if the Dallas-based airliner doesn’t get more economic aid, it may have to furlough employees and cut wages. They have never furloughed employees and have avoided pay cuts through voluntary leave and schedule changes up until now. The CEO and other executives have also taken a 20% pay cut and believe that they will not recover until a vaccine is developed.

That’s all for this week. We’ll check back in on Tuesday with updates from the weekend. Remember to mask up and stay socially distant. Oh, and register to vote! The deadline to register in Texas is next Monday, October 5.

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