Four new positive COVID-19 cases and 14 additional patient recoveries were reported for Hopkins County at 5 p.m. Friday, July 31, marking the fourth consecutive day in which new cases have been reported and the third day this week that recoveries have been reported for Hopkins County.
Six patients were also reported to be in the COVID-19 unit at CHRISTUS Mother Frances Hospital-Sulphur Springs on July 31. That’s one less patient in the unit on Friday than on Thursday. None of the patients in the CMFH-SS COVID-19 unit were reported to be on ventilators, according to Hopkins County Judge Robert Newsom.
Overall, that’s 7 new COVID-19 cases and 26 recoveries this week (July 27-31), and 89 new cases and 48 recoveries in July for Hopkins County.
Of the 152 Hopkins County residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 since mid-March, 98 have recovered, leaving 54 active cases of COVID-19 in Hopkins County on July 31.
When Texas Department of State Health Services and Texas Health and Human Services Commission updated their COVID-19 fatality data dashboard at 4:10 p.m. July 31, it still showed one COVID-19 fatality for Hopkins County. The DSHS “COVID-19 Total Fatalities by County” spreadsheet shows the fatality to have been assigned to Hopkins County on July 23.
Hopkins County Emergency Management Coordinator Andy Endsley, on July 31, said local officials still don’t know where the state is getting the information reported on their dashboard. On July 30 he reported that neither local emergency management officials nor regional DSHS officials have received any information regarding any COVID-19 deaths of Hopkins County residents.
DSHS on July 30 reported a manual check revealed an “automation error” Wednesday, which cause 229 fatalities that did not list COVID-19 as the direct cause of death to be counted in the state data. This follows DSHS’ shift in the way COVID-19 deaths are determined; death certificate data is now used to count fatalities as of Monday.
The July 31 report stated that the cumulative fatality counts for July 27-29 were corrected, but DHSH reports numbers could rise as more death certificates are filed daily across the state.
HHS’ COVID-19 page also continues to show only one worker at one Sulphur Springs nursing home facility as having tested positive for COVID-19 as of July 17; that was an active case on July 13 and continued to be an active case on July 17, according to the HHS report. All data in this report is 2 weeks behind so that information self-reported by these facilities can be entered and error-checked.
No nursing home or assisted living facility in Hopkins County has reported having any residents test positive for COVID-19 either in the past or through July 17, according to the HHS reports.
Those who check the DSHS/HHS site regularly for case counts will want to note DSHS will not be posting any new data on the COVID-19 dashboard on Sunday, Aug. 2, “due to a scheduled upgrade to the system that processes electronic lab reports.” The upgrade should “enable incoming lab results to be processed faster and maintain compatibility with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Sunday’s data will be posted along with Monday’s data in the files on the “Additional Data tab” at the bottom of the COVID-19 dashboard.
