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Dallas County Judge And Health Director Say It’s ‘Still Too Early’ To Fully Reopen Texas Syndicated Local – CBS Dallas / Fort Worth
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Dr. Philip Huang told County Commissioners Tuesday morning, it’s too early to do away with all COVID-19 restrictions.
“Just because there’s some relaxation (of policies) at the state level, that is not what our experts recommend,” Dr. Huang said before Gov. Greg Abbott’s announcement it’s “time to reopen Texas 100%”
“It’s still too early,” Dr. Huang said. “We would love to be able to get back to normal, but with all the variables that are out there, we still have a lot more people that need to be vaccinated. It’s not the time to relax.”
HOUSTON, Texas The good news is that Texas is finally seeing COVID-19 hospitalizations and cases trend downward after a holiday season marked by a record-breaking surge that pushed hospital systems and health care workers to their limits.
The bad news is that there are still more Texans getting sick and being hospitalized for the coronavirus than this summer, when the state was in the throes of the first wave.
And while vaccinations are reaching more people every day, health care experts warn that this doesn t mean Texas is out of the woods. They say people should remain vigilant and continue following safety guidelines like mask-wearing and social distancing, especially as new variants of the virus continue to emerge. With Super Bowl Sunday around the corner, many are concerned about super spreader events that could undo the modest progress the state has experienced in the past few weeks.
According to Stephen Love, spokesman for the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients was 3,009 on Feb. 2, a slight increase of 34 patients from the day prior. The COVID-19 census as a percent of bed capacity was 18.9%.
The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is located in Trauma Service Area-E, a 19-county area of North Texas. According to DSHS data, the percentage of hospitalized people with COVID-19 in TSA-E dropped below 19% on Jan. 31 for the first time since before Christmas when the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations was still climbing.
The percentage of hospitalizations in TSA-E peaked at 27.17% on Jan. 10, about two weeks after the Christmas and New Year s holidays when many North Texans traveled to see their families.