Pete Freedman
One In Every 13 Dallas County Residents Has Caught COVID, The Rollout Of Fair Park’s “Mega” Vaccine Site Has Been Wild And Post Malone Comes To The Rescue.
Y’all tired of this shit yet?
Well, sorry to break it to you, but we’re nowhere near out of the woods yet. Case numbers in Dallas County keep spiking, our elected officials are casting blame on one another over their bungled rollout of vaccines and major corporations are taking it upon themselves to close their businesses following outbreaks.
Not even baseball- or Post Malone-related good news this week is enough to make us see the light at the end of the tunnel today.
Still: Knowledge, especially in darkness, is power.
To that end, here’s the latest you need to know about as far as COVID-19 goes in the Dallas-Fort Worth region this week.
- On Friday, Dallas County reported 2,817 new positive cases and 24 deaths. This brings the county’s cumulative positive case count to 203,897 and its total death toll to 1,853. Dallas County claims more than 2.6 million residents, meaning that one in every 13 county citizens have tested positive for COVID-19 at this point — per averages, anyway.
NEW: Dallas County Reports 2,817 New Positive 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases and 24 Deaths, Including 664 Probable Cases pic.twitter.com/nDPRTRDhmH
— Clay Jenkins (@JudgeClayJ) January 15, 2021
- Reports to Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson from 25 hospitals showed 4,686 of 6,082 total hospital beds in Dallas were occupied as of Friday. Additionally, 777 of 952 ICU beds were occupied, while 473 of 1,057 ventilators were in use. As we continue to point out, it is best to take these numbers with a grain of salt, as they’re directly in contrast to Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins’ countywide figures, which point out that only 18 adult ICU beds were available in the county as of Thursday. The Dallas Observer took an interesting look at the bed-count discrepancies earlier this week if you’re curious as to the reasons contributing to the confusion.
Here are the bed and ventilator capacity statistics as reported by 25 hospitals in the @CityOfDallas:
Total beds: 6082
Beds occupied: 4686 (77%)
Total ICU beds: 952
ICU beds occupied: 777 (82%)
Total ventilators: 1057
Ventilators in use: 473 (45%)— Mayor Eric Johnson (@Johnson4Dallas) January 15, 2021
- The rollout of Dallas County’s “mega” COVID-19 vaccination site at Fair Park has been a bit of a mess, to say the least. Since opening on Monday, those qualified to receive vaccines have been forced to deal with long lines stemming from people apparently forwarding their own email confirmations to friends as if they’re just sharing information about all vaccination appointments and not just their own. (LOL, Boomers.) Now, at least temporarily, the site is planning to just accept that demand and vaccinate walk-ups from people over 75 years old. Making matters worse, it turns out the site’s limited supply of vaccines aren’t going to Black and Latinx residents as initially hoped. Anyway, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins and Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson are beefing over all of this, releasing dueling public memos that pointing fingers and blame one another. These two are really just permanently stuck in a Spider-Man meme, huh?
- The vaccine rollout isn’t necessarily going any better up in Collin County, where frustrations are mounting. Collin County Judge Chris Hill, in particular, is railing against the state for providing it with Texas’ worst ratio of vaccines to population in any county. The county currently only boasts 2,000 vaccines — and has a waiting list of those eligible to be vaccinated of more than 86,000.
- Post Malone is donating 10,000 Crocs to frontline workers at 70 hospitals across the U.S. Seems the government could learn a thing or two about distribution from the Grapevine-sprung pop star.
- All Apple stores across Texas are closing temporarily because of the pandemic. In fact, the Dallas Morning News reports, the company’s stores at Dallas’ NorthPark Center, Galleria Dallas, Fort Worth’s University Park Village and Southlake Town Square are already closed.
- Immediately after opening this year’s Texas legislation, there are concerns about a possible spread of the virus. Rep. Joe Deshotel of Beaumont told The Texas Tribune he tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon. Rep. Michelle Beckley of Carrollton, whose desk is in front of Deshotel’s in the state capitol, has in turn entered into quarantine as of Friday morning.
- The Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s slate of weekend shows have been canceled after a positive COVID-19 test result from a guest conductor. Guest conductor Nicholas McGegan tested positive after leading a Mozart concert on Thursday evening.
- Some people are still pretty kind and neat, though. Writing for the New York Times, former Dallas Morning News editor Mike Wilson checks in with a sweet story about a 74-year-old Dallas man who felt cooped up in his house because of the pandemic and wanted to get out and have a baseball catch with someone. So his wife posted about his request on the Nextdoor app and, lo and behold, ballplayers of all ages, shapes and sizes joined up with him at Cole Park for some socially distant throwing. It’s like they say: If you post about it on Nextdoor, they will come. Yes, people will most definitely come.
Check back with us next Tuesday for more of the latest need-to-knows on the area coronavirus front.