Dallas is a medical hot zone. That is per a White House report obtained by Center for Public Integrity which says Texas should continue to mandate masks, keep bars closed, decrease indoor dining to 25% capacity and limit social gatherings to 10 people or fewer in counties with rising COVID-19 positivity rates.
The report dated July 14 shows eighteen states currently in what the task force calls the “red zone” for cases. This means there were more than 100 new COVID-19 cases for every 100,000 people in a given state during the second week in July.
Eleven states are in that same “red zone” for test positivity, the level a state reaches when higher than 10% of those getting tested are testing positive. Texas is in both.
Ten total states across the country are in both “red zones,” mainly across the south. They include:
- Alabama
- Arizona
- Florida
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- Nevada
- South Carolina
- Texas
In the week before July 14, Texas was reporting nearly double the number of new cases compared to the national average, at 206 new cases to the U.S.’s 119 per 100,000 people. The state’s positivity rate for the same week was 20.6%, according to the report. Additionally, cases were starting in child care settings.
Over the course of the three weeks before July 14, Harris, Dallas and Bexar counties had the highest number of new cases out of the state’s 254 counties, with the three accounting for 35% of the total new cases in Texas, the report shows.
“Hot Zone” counties
Nearly half of Texas’ counties are in both of the “red zones”— 123 out of Texas’ 254.
The top 12 counties in the “red zone,” ranked by the highest number of cases in the past three weeks, were:
- Harris
- Dallas
- Bexar
- Travis
- Tarrant
- Hidalgo
- Nueces
- El Paso
- Galveston
- Williamson
- Lubbock
- McLennan
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