The single day record for new COVID-19 cases in Texas continues rose for the second day in a row to 5,489 and the single day total for people in Texas hospitals rose for the 13th day in a row for a new high of 4,389 cases on June 24, according to state data. Hopkins County, however, has had no reports of new COVID-19 cases since Monday, June 22, leaving the total for the 101 days the county has been tracking the data at 50 confirmed positive COVID-19 cases, according to the weekly Hopkins County COVID-19 testing report provided by Hopkins County Hospital District COO/EMS Director Brent Smith.
Of the 50 confirmed cases, 7 were reported in the last week, the same rate of increase reported from May 12-22. The largest increase in cases during a single reporting period was the 13 cases recorded from June 3-10. Overall, during the weekly reporting periods, Hopkins County saw an increase of 17 new cases during May and 29 so far in June.
While that’s a significant increase for Hopkins County, where only 4 cases had been reported and all had recovered by the end of April, that’s still less than 5 percent of tests sent for testing that have come back positive.
While positive cases went up, so did screenings and the number of negative test results. Over the last week, while 7 tests were positive, another 107 test results have come back negative. That’s a total of 889 tests negative for Hopkins County residents since March.
Another 87 met people criteria for screening, with samples for testing since between June 17 and June 24., for a total of 1,058 reported by the “majority of health care partners in Hopkins County for the past 101 days.”
Notable is that some private businesses and health facilities that use private organizations to screen workers and are not required to report those screening numbers to the hospital district. Those private screening counts are reported to DSHS and not included in the weekly screening report from the hospital district, according to Smith.
Following another mobile testing over the weekend, that leaves only 99 test results were still pending for Hopkins County at midday Wednesday, 32 fewer than last week.
Five additional Hopkins County residents recovered from COVID-19 over the last week, for a total of 20 recoveries so far. Recoveries are released according to the Centers for Disease Control guidelines and a local physician authority
The weekly testing report showed no confirmed deaths of Hopkins County residents due to COVDI-19, despite fluctuating numbers reported since the weekend on the Texas Department of State Health Services/Health and Human Services COVID-19 Case Counts daily report.
The state COVID-19 dashboard first reported one COVID-19 fatality in Hopkins County on June 20 then a second one on June 21. That number had been reduced to one COVID-19 fatality for Hopkins County by Wednesday afternoon, June 24.
According to Smith, any deaths reported by the state are still under review by DSHS.
This is not the first time that the numbers on the state COVID-19 dashboard varied from those released by local officials. Sometimes, the state data lags behind county data and others it shows more cases than confirmed and reported by county officials.
The Local Health Authority discovered a miscounting in the state data on June 8. One patient had been counted twice by the state. The error had been corrected by June 10, local emergency management officials reported.
The local emergency management team have on numerous occasions during press conferences said they only release information regarding COVID-19 cases only after that information has been confirmed.
Smith and local health officials urge everyone to continue practicing social distancing and proper hand washing.
