The Tarrant County Public Health Department says ICUs in the county have a 97% capacity on Wednesday, adding 3,410 new cases of COVID-19, along with 12 additional deaths.
According to the TCPH COVID-19 dashboard, there were 1,489 COVID-19 patients in provincial hospitals up to Tuesday, 73 more than Monday. COVID-19 patients make up 29% of all hospital patients in the county and 25.4% of all hospital patients in TSA-E. The total occupancy rate of all hospital beds in the province now stands at 87%, down 3% from Tuesday. The adult ICU capacity in Tarrant County has dropped to 97% according to the TCPH COVID-19 dashboard.
Although the hospital’s capacity is approaching 100%, officials stressed last week that they have plans to expand the capacity as needed.
“Hospitals have plans for a pandemic. Don’t let me scare people that they don’t know or that they don’t have the capacity. They do, but do you really want to increase that capacity? We already know that we are short of staff. Vinnu Taneja, Director of Health for Tarrant Province, said Tuesday. “The staff have been working in the hospital for almost 10 months dealing with a lot of COVID and illness. They are tired. Some of them had COVID, family with COVID, some died. So, do you really want to stretch that ability?”
To register for a COVID-19 vaccination in Tarrant County, click here for more information.
In the past seven days, the province has announced 18,400 new and probable cases of the virus, or an average of 2,628 per day. Data from the county’s health department indicated that there were 2,777 more confirmed cases than the most recent report and 633 more likely cases. To date, the province has reported 144,103 confirmed cases of the virus and 21,185 probable cases for a total of 165,288 cases.
The province also reports an additional 1,799 estimated recoveries, bringing the total survivors to 118,933. There are currently an estimated 44,794 active cases in the county, the bulk of all North Texas counties.
Latest victims included an Arlington man in her 90’s, a man from Euless in her 90’s, a Fort Worth woman in her 90’s, a Hurst woman in her 90’s, a Tarrant County woman unincorporated in her 90s, a North Richland Hills woman in the 80s, a Arlington woman in the 80s, a Bedford man in the 80s, a Mansfield man in the 80s, two Fort Worth women in their 80s and a man from Arlington in their 60s. They all had underlying health problems.
TCPH is now reporting 1,561 deaths attributed to the virus as of March 2020.
County officials also said on Wednesday that 9,390 vaccines have been distributed in the province.
Tarrant County, which has extended its mask mandate until February 28, 2021, began reporting both probable and confirmed cases of COVID-19 in August 2020 at the request of the state health agency. Likely cases, the county said, are responsible for a variety of real-world situations and can reveal cases in the community that would otherwise go unreported.
COVID-19 causes a respiratory disease with cough, fever and shortness of breath and can lead to bronchitis, severe pneumonia, or even death. For more information go to coronavirus.tarrantcounty.com or call the Tarrant County Public Health information line, 817-248-6299, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.