3 COVID-19 Deaths, 25 New Cases & 27 Recoveries Reported Aug. 17, 2021, For Hopkins County

The number of COVID-19 cases continues to swell in Hopkins County, with 25 new COVID-19 cases reported Aug. 17, three additional deaths and 27 recoveries reported on Tuesday, 2021. That leaves 244 active COVID-19 cases among Hopkins County residents on Aug. 17. Also across the region, only 1 ICU hospital bed was available on Monday.

COVID-19 Deaths

Across the state, only 96 new COVID-19 fatalities were recorded by Texas Department of State Health Services on Aug. 17. Unfortunately, three are confirmed by death certificate to be Hopkins County residents who died as a direct result of COVID-19: two on Aug. 10 and one on Aug. 11. That’s five Hopkins County residents who have died this month from COVID-19, and a total of 119 since July 2020 – when the county’s first COVID-19 death was recorded.

More COVID-19 fatalities were recorded for Hopkins County Aug. 1-17 than during the months of May, June and July combined. Four Hopkins County residents died in May from COVID; four Hopkins County residents died from COVID-19 in May, and none were reported to have occurred in either June or July. In fact, the last time Hopkins County had five COVID deaths in a single month was February, a month with a composite of 269 new COVID cases.

That means that while 5.98 percent of the population of Hopkins County has contracted the virus, 5.37 percent of the county residents who received lab-confirmed positive molecular test results have died from the virus.

Of the 8 counties immediately surrounding Hopkins, more COVID deaths have been reported in three counties, which each have a larger population than Hopkins.

In Lamar County, 162 residents have died from COVID-19, including one one Aug. 5. Hunt County has had 185 total COVID-19 deaths, including three this month, one Aug. 3 and two on Aug. 5, A total of 134 Wood County residents have died as a result of COVID, the latest on Aug. 5, 2021.

Only one of the five other nearby counties has had more than 50 fatalities. Titus County, the closest in population to Hopkins County with about 4,300 less residents, has had 85 residents die from COVID-19, including one on Aug. 4, according to the Aug. 17, 2021, Texas COVID-19 Fatalities County Data by County report.

Franklin County, one of the first in the area to report a COVID fatality on March 11, 2020, has had 26 total COVID-19 deaths, and none since March 2, 2021. Delta County has had only 14 fatalities, the last reported to have occurred on July 4, 2021. Thirty Rains County residents have died from COVID-19, the latest on July 23, 2021. Red River County has lost 39 residents to the coronavirus, the most recent on Aug. 8, 2021.

COVID-19 Case Counts

August has almost matched February in total new COVID-19 cases. From Aug. 1-17, 2021, 268 new COVID-19 cases have been reported for Hopkins County, just one shy of February’s total. Overall, that’s 268 new COVID-19 cases reported during the first 17 days of August 2021, which is 80 more COVID-19 cases reported so far this month than during the entire month of 2020. So far, only December (483 cases) and January (400 cases) have had more COVID-19 cases, but at the current pace August could very well match or exceed those monthly totals in terms of new COVID cases. (The state did not begin keeping track of and daily reporting probable cases until Dec. 11, so only lab-confirmed case counts are available before that date.) Cumulatively, 4,036 Hopkins County COVID cases have been reported to DSHS since March of 2021.

Of the 20,123 new cases lab-confirmed by molecular testing across the state Tuesday, including 21 Hopkins County cases. That’s 25 lab-confirmed cases this week, 76 the first week and 94 last week for at total of 195 confirmed so far during the month of August, bringing the cumulative total for Hopkins County since the pandemic began to 2,216 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Aug. 17, 2021. That means 11 more confirmed cases were recorded last month than the 83 confirmed during the entire month of July and 14 more than the combined total of all new cases reported for Hopkins County during the month of June (63 confirmed and 27 probable) and five more than in May. The 94 confirmed cases reported Aug. 8-14 was also 38 more than all of April, when 32 confirmed and 24 probable cases were recorded.

At this time last year, 220 Hopkins County residents had received positive molecular test results; at that time probable cases were tracked by Texas Department of State Health Services. That means 1,996 additional Hopkins County residents have received lab-confirmed COVID-19 tests results over the last 365 days.

Four of the 4,299 new probable cases reported for Texas reside have Hopkins County addresses. That’s seven new probable cases this week, three today and four Monday, combined with the 22 reported the first week and 66 44 reported the second week of August, that’s 73 new probable cases recorded for Hopkins County so far this week, including three Monday, four Tuesday, 22 the first week and 44 the second week of the month, according to DHS COVID-19 Case Counts dashboards.

That leaves 244 Hopkins County residents reported to still have coronavirus on Aug. 17, two less than on Monday, when seven new COVID-19 cases were reported, and five more than on Aug. 14, when 38 new COVID cases were recorded. That’s 138 more active cases reported for Hopkins County on Aug. 17 than on Aug. 1. The most active cases reported for July 2021 was 100 on the 31st, while June’s high was 43 on the first and 41 on May 29 and 31. The most active cases on any one day in February was 220 the day after Valentine’s Day. The most active cases reported for Hopkins County during December was 273 on the 14th.

Hospital Reports

Lab-confirmed COVID-19 patients accounted for 12,227 or 24.05 percent of all hospitalizations in Texas hospitals, and 19.48 percent of the total hospital capacity (62,782 beds), leaving 7,803 beds available in Texas hospitals on Monday, Aug. 16, 2021. Overall, 8,840 of the 50,845 occupied general hospital beds in Texas hospitals were occupiend by lab-confirmed COVID patients, and accounted for 3,186 of the 7,174 ICU beds occupiend in Texas hospitals on Monday.

In Region F Trauma Service Center, which includes all hospitals in Northeast Texas from Bowie to Hopkins County, 179 lab-confirmed COVID patients were hospitalized, accounting for 21.62 percent of the the total hospital capacity (828) and 29.78 percent of total hospitalizations. In TSA F, 59 lab-confirmed COVID-19 patients were in 82 of the occupied ICUs as well as in 120 of the 600 general beds occupied on Aug. 16. That left only 1 unocuppied ICU hospital bed available on Monday. In fact, Aug. 16 marked the seventh consecutive day in which fewer than 10 ICU beds available across TSA F, and the third day in the last week that only one ICU beds was available in TSA F.

At CHRISTUS Mother Frances Hospital Sulphur Springs, the patient count in the COVID-19 unit rose from 12 on Monday to 21 on Tuesday, Aug. 16, according to Hopkins County/Sulphur Springs Emergency Management reports. That’s the largest number of COVID-19 patients reported since January, when the COVID unit housed as many as 32 COVID patients on Jan. 6-7. In fact on only 5 days did the patient count drop below 21 in January: 18 Jan. 27-28, 19 on the 25th, 20 each on the 22nd and 29th. In fact, at one point the COVID unit was reported to have continued to have a single digit patient census consistently for several months, and on April 5 city officials reported the COVID unit had no patients at all.