Dallas County reports 6 COVID-19 deaths, including 1 person who was fully vaccinated

DALLAS, TX – Dallas County reported six more COVID-19 deaths and 110 new coronavirus cases Saturday.

The latest victims were a Garland man in his 60s who had been hospitalized, a Dallas man in his 70s who had been hospitalized, a Grand Prairie woman in her 70s who died at home, a woman in her 80s lived at a long-term care facility in Irving, a Carrollton woman in her 90s who died at home and a woman in her 90s who lived in a long-term care facility in Mesquite. All but two of the victims had underlying health conditions.

One of the deaths was of a person who had received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and had several underlying health conditions, health officials said. The county did not specify which person that was.

The county said there have been a total of 506 COVID-19 cases reported in fully vaccinated people. Seven of those people died and 82 were hospitalized, the county said.

The county did not provide any other details about the cases in vaccinated people.

County Judge Clay Jenkins — who said that the day’s case count may or may not still be artificially low because of an issue with the state’s reporting system — said in a written statement that the county’s new daily case rate is the lowest it’s been this year and the lowest average rate the county has seen since the end of last June.

“These are very encouraging trends as we also now report that almost 52% of Dallas County residents 16 and older have had at least one shot and over 40% are fully vaccinated,” Jenkins said. “If you haven’t received your vaccine yet, please do not delay.”

Of the new cases, 83 were confirmed and 27 were probable. The numbers bring the county’s overall case total to 301,511, including 259,369 confirmed and 42,142 probable. The death toll is 3,978.

The average number of new daily cases in the county for the last two weeks is 183. For the previous 14-day period, the average was 244.

Health officials use hospitalizations, intensive-care admissions and emergency room visits as key metrics to track the real-time impact of COVID-19 in the county.

Health officials did not provide an update to hospitalizations numbers on Saturday. In the 24-hour period that ended Thursday, 143 COVID-19 patients were in acute care in hospitals in the county. During the same period, 302 ER visits were for symptoms of the disease.

According to the state, 1,058,437 people in Dallas County have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, while 821,913 — 40.5% of the county’s population 16 and older — are fully vaccinated.