While many states and countries are lowering and, in some cases, even eliminating COVID-19 restrictions altogether, the virus has surged in other areas. After almost 2 full years, many have become weary of the extra precautions, whether required vaccinations, frequent testing, booster shots, masking, lockdowns, restricted gatherings or frequent sanitizing and extra cleansing with virus-killing substances. Health care and educational fields are reporting frequent burn out, exhaustion among personnel and difficulty maintaining adequate levels of staffing for daily operations.
Just as the virus continues to mutate over time, people are learning to adapt, overcome and deal with COVID-19’s presence in society. Unfortunately, some who contract the virus don’t live to grouse about it with their family and friends. People in this community are still dying from COVID-19.
Thirteen Hopkins County COVID-19 deaths have been reported so far in 2022. That’s a dozen Hopkins County residents who are confirmed to have died in January from coronavirus and one who died the first week of February, according to Texas Department of State Health Services.
That’s still three less COVID fatalities in January 2022 than the 15 reported in January of 2021. A dozen COVID-19 deaths in January is notable, however. The last time Hopkins County had more than five COVID fatalities in a month was September and August of 2021, when 14 and 15 (respectively) county residents died from COVID-19.
Jan. 18, 2022 was the first time since Sept. 16, 2021 that two Hopkins County residents have died from the virus on the same day. In only 10 of the 365 days last year were more than one COVID death for Hopkins County: two each on Jan. 2, Jan. 5, Jan. 23, Jan. 24, March 3, Aug. 10, Aug. 30 and Sept. 1 and Sept. 16, 2021; and three deaths on Aug. 6, 2021. Since the first COVID-19 death was confirmed in July 2020, only two months have passed with no Hopkins County COVID deaths, June and July of 2021.
Overall, 166 Hopkins County residents have died since the first COVID-19 cases were reported in the area in March 2020: 84 in 2020, 69 in 2021 and 13 so far this year.
(DSHS Feb. 10, 2022 COVID-19 County Trends Dashboard graphic)
Local officials, however, continue to dispute the accuracy of the DSHS data, preferring to use the counts at CHISTUS Mother Frances Hospital – Sulphur Springs as a more accurate gauge of COVID prevalence in Hopkins County. The reports given by city and county officials periodically regarding the hospital indicate that the COVID patient count continued to rise alongside the rise in COVID cases reported by the state last month.
For the latter part of January and start of February officials reported 30-35 patients in the local hospital.
According to the Centers for Disease Control’s Feb. 10 report, the community transmission irate n Hopkins County remains high, with a 34.39% positivity rate from Jan. 31 to Feb. 6, 2022. From Feb. 2 to Feb. 8, 2022, Hopkins County was reported to have 24 new hospital admissions and 149 cases, according to the CDC’s 7-day metric on the Data Tracker COVID-19 Integrate County View for Hopkins County.
That’s 29.72% fewer cases, which resulted in a 3.62% decrease in the positivity rate and a 17.24% decrease in new hospital admissions compared to the previous 7 days.
A total of 406 Hopkins County residents were tested in the 7 days ending Feb. 6, a 32.56% decrease from the week before, acording to the CDC data (formed using statistics obtained from DSHS).
COVID-19 cases composed 21. 56% of the total hospitalizations out of the total capacity in Trauma Service Area F, which includes all hospitals in Northeast Texas including Hopkins County, on Feb. 3, slowly rose to 22.1% on Feb. 6, then declined to 20.58% Feb. 7, 19.08% Feb. 8 and 17.94% on Feb. 9.
On Feb. 9, 2022, only 155 lab-confirmed COVID-19 patients were in TSA F hospitals, 109 adult COVID patients in general beds, 46 adult COVID patients in ICU beds, with 9 confirmed COVID-19 admissions in the previous 24-hours and 24 confirmed COIVD-19 patients on ventilators. That’s out of a total 864 staffed beds, 772 of which were staffed inpatient beds, leaving available 154 staffed hospital beds and 149 ventilators across TSA F on Feb. 9, according to the Feb. 10, 2022 DSHS COVID-19 Hospitals-Regional dashboard.
The COVID-19 rates across the country and state reportedly peaked on or about Jan. 15, according to the CDC.
In Hopkins County, the new COVID-19 case count peaked the week of Jan. 15-21, going from an average of 16 new confirmed COVID cases daily the week of Jan. 1-7 (although daily counts ranged from 5 new confirmed cases on Jan. 2 to 27 new cases on Jan. 4) to an average of 26 new confirmed cases the week of Jan. 8-14 (with daily counts ranging from 13 on the 11th to 39 on the 13th) to an average of 32 new cases daily the week of Jan. 15-21 (with a low of 11 new cases on Jan. 16 and a high of 47 new cases on Jan. 21). New cases then began dropping off in week 4 of January, averaging 24 new cases daily (with a low of 15 recorded on Jan. 24 and high of 34 on Jan. 29). An average of 15 ne confirmed cases were reported by DSHS for Hopkins County the final three days of January 2022, with 20 on the 29th, 11 on the 30th and 15 on Jan. 31.
The daily average during the first week of February was 17 (with a low of 10 on the seventh and a high of 25 on the third). From Feb. 8-10, however, the daily new confirmed molecular case count dipped to 9, with only 7 new cases confirmed on the 8th and 10th, and 12 on the 9th, acording to the Feb. 10, 2022 DSHS Case Counts Dashboard report for Hopkins County.
Overall, 736 new confirmed COVID cases were reported for Hopkins County Jan. 1-31, 2022, and 142 Feb. 1-10, 2022 (116 during the first 7 days of the month one more than the first week of January 2022).
Another 405 probable cases were reported last month, and 58 probable cases from Feb. 1-10, including 51 the first week and only 7 from Feb. 8-11, 2022. That’s 216 more COVID cases reported in January 2022 than in December 2021, and 741 more COVID cases last month than in January of 2021.
A total of 41.1 percent of the population of Hopkins County age 5 years and up had been fully vaccinated as of Feb. 9, according to the CDC’s 7-day metric.
Cumulatively, Hopkins County has had 4,542 confirmed COVID-19 cases since spring break of 2020: 1,404 in 2020, another 2,260 in 2021, and 878 so far in 2022, according to the Dec. 10 DSHS Case Counts dashboard.
Hopkins County has also had at least 2,467 probable cases, including 514 in 2020, another 1,490 probable cases in 2021 and 463 during the first 41 days of 2022.
From spring break of 2020 to Feb. 9, 2022, a total of 48,804 COVID-19 tests hade been performed in public labs through the Laboratory Response Network and non public labs such as commercial labs, hospitals, physicians offices and drive-thru testing sites and reported by electronic and non-electronic means to DSHS.
