COVID19 Numbers highest since February 2021 per Dallas County Health and Human Services with almost 1000 new cases report including several deaths. One of those deaths was a fifteen year old girl.
This time last year, Dallas was considered a medical hot zone for its COVID19 case load. Last week, UTSouthwestern pandemic modeling predicted six hundred new daily cases by August 9. Yesterday’s numbers top that by 60%.
Judge Jenkins released data about the new virus infections.
Locally, it is reported that Collin County and Tarrant both had hundreds of new infections reported also and that Denton County is down to ten ICU beds – the same issue driving restrictions earlier in the pandemic.
COVID19 Numbers Highest Since February – But Back To Normal?
Earlier in the week, Governor Abbott stated local governments and schools could not require a mask or vaccine mandate and it was a personal choice.
Dallas ISD has already said school will open under normal conditions with almost no option for virtual students.
The recent K-12 CDC Mask recommendation is being ignored by Governor Greg Abbott per statements reinforcing his May Executive Order.
The CDC has recommended everyone in the K-12 setting wear a mask indoors, regardless of vaccination status. Children under 12 are not yet eligible for FDA authorized vaccinations.
When asked by a KXAN reporter about whether Texas would be allowed to enforce mask wearing his press secretary responded: “the time for government mandating of masks is over…”
The spokesperson goes on, “vaccines are the most effective defense against contracting COVID and becoming seriously ill, and we continue to urge all eligible Texans to get the vaccine. The COVID vaccine will always remain voluntary and never forced in Texas.”
K-12 CDC Mask Recommendation or Donald Trump?
It is not clear if the current course of action is due to the election calendar.
Governor Abbott is in a fierce primary contest for the Republican nomination for Governor. One of his opponents, Don Huffines, has already hit out at Abbott over the rolling blackouts and freezeout earlier in the year.
Abbott has soought the support of former President Donald Trump – despite a clear move away from Trump in many suburbs, including Dallas – over the infiltration of the Republican Party by QAnon.
Candida Auris (C. auris) is in Dallas per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today. They have evidence that the untreatable fungus is spreading at two Dallas-area hospitals and a Washington, D.C, nursing home.
Several patients have been diagnozed with the invasive fungal infections. The infection is impervious to all three major classes of medications, according to the CDC.
“This is really the first time we’ve started seeing clustering of resistance” in which patients seemed to be getting the infections from each other, said the CDC’s Dr. Meghan Lyman.
The new infections come as Dallas is still responding to the COVID19 pandemic and the recent diagnosis of monkeypox in Dallas.
The fungus, Candida auris, is a harmful form of yeast. It is dangerous to hospital and nursing home patients with serious medical problems.
It is most deadly when it enters the bloodstream, heart, or brain.
Health officials have sounded alarms for years about superbugs like Candida auris. In particular, they have found commonly used drugs having little to no effect.
In those cases, there was no evidence the infections had spread from patient to patient – scientists concluded the resistance to the drugs formed during treatment.
The new cases did spread, the CDC concluded.
In Washington, D.C., a cluster of 101 C. auris cases at a nursing home dedicated to very sick patients included three that were resistant to all three kinds of antifungal medications. A cluster of 22 in two Dallas-area hospitals included two with that level of resistance. The facilities weren’t identified, but the cases occured between January and April.
Lyman said both are ongoing outbreaks and that additional infections have been identified since April. But those added numbers were not reported.
Investigators reviewed medical records and found no evidence of previous antifungal use among the patients in those clusters. Health officials say that means they spread from person to person.
Candida auris Background
Per the CDC, Candida auris is an emerging fungus that can cause outbreaks of severe infections in healthcare facilities.
In the United States, it has most commonly spread in long-term care facilities caring for people with severe medical conditions.
However, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, outbreaks of C. auris have been reported in COVID-19 units of acute care hospitals. These outbreaks may be related to changes in routine infection control practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, including limited availability of gloves and gowns, or reuse of these items, and changes in cleaning and disinfection practices.
New C. auris cases without links to known cases or healthcare abroad have been identified recently in multiple states, suggesting an increase in undetected transmission. Screening for C. auris colonization, an important part of containment efforts, has been more limited as resources of healthcare facilities and health departments have been diverted to respond to COVID-19.
A pox panic is taking place across the United States as more than two hundred contacts occurred between the Dallas monkeypox case last week and those who came within six feet of the initial patient.
In addition to its recent focus on COVID19, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is monitoring two hundred cases across twenty-seven states. The Texas individual who contracted the disease in Nigeria before traveling to Dallas by way of Atlanta on July 8 – 9, 2021.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that so far, no additional cases of the disease have been detected among those being monitored, but there is the possibility contact cases have happened unknown to CDC investigators.
State and local health officials are working with the CDC to follow up with known contacts of the Dallas infected patient, Patient Zero.
Pox Panic Started Friday
The case of monkeypox is the first confirmed case of the disease in the United States in two decades.
Monkeypox is a rare, infectious disease that can cause widespread rashes, fever, headaches, and muscle aches in people who contract it.
Other signs and symptoms include:
Fever
Headache
Muscle aches
Backache
Swollen lymph nodes
Chills
Exhaustion
According to WHO, the monkeypox virus has similar features to the more dangerous human smallpox. The primary difference between in symptoms between smallpox and monkeypox is monkeypox will cause lymph nodes to swell (lymphadenopathy). Smallpox does not have cause lymphadenopathy.
There are two types of monkeypox viruses – the more contagious and harsher version from Central Africa and the other from West Africa.
A Dallas monkeypox case was reported by Dallas County Health and Human Services, but their spokesman says the confirmation of monkeypox infection in the city is “rare,” but “not a reason for alarm.”
DCHHS confirmed the infection in a person who traveled from Nigeria to Dallas and arrived at Love Field on July 9th. Health officials said Friday the person is currently isolated at a Dallas hospital, believed to be the Parkland Hospital Infectious Disease unit, to prevent the spread of the virus and is said to be in stable condition.
The case is the first known case of monkeypox in a Dallas resident. Dallas has been a Hot Zone for COVID19 and other infectious diseases because of its multiple international airports.
Dallas Monkeypox Background
The first human cases of monkeypox were recorded in 1970 in Africa, specifically the Democratic Republic of Congo.
At the time there was an intensified effort to eliminate smallpox.
Monkeypox was first discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in colonies of monkeys kept for research, hence the name ‘monkeypox.’
In humans, the symptoms of monkeypox are similar to but milder than the symptoms associated with smallpox.
Monkeypox begins with fever, headache, muscle aches, and exhaustion.
The primary difference between in symptoms between smallpox and monkeypox is monkeypox will cause lymph nodes to swell (lymphadenopathy). Smallpox does not have cause lymphadenopathy.
The incubation period (time from infection to symptoms) for monkeypox is usually 7−14 days but can range from 5−21 days. The illness begins with:
Dallas trash services will be experiencing delays per Tim Oliver, the City of Dallas Interim Director of Sanitation Services.
The City of Dallas is experiencing a laborer shortage within the Department of Sanitation Services, resulting in intermittent service delays for customers.
Sanitation has adjusted operations to prioritize on-time garbage collection for customers. This means all available staff are assigned to garbage collection routes first. Per a city press release, blue roll cart collection of recyclable materials may be delayed by one or two days in various areas of the city, on a rotating basis, over the next several weeks, until staffing levels stabilize. IT has been reported that recycling has been missed by more than a week in some cases.
The City of Dallas says it is not necessary for customers to report missed recycling collection to 311 unless materials have not been collected after more than forty-eight hours. Areas primarily serviced by automated truck routes will be less affected by this disruption.
Residents can find updates on garbage, recycling, and brush and bulky trash collections on Sanitation’s website, on NextDoor, and the Dallas Sanitation app (App Store / Google Play). Sanitation customers enrolled in the City of Dallas ePay system also receive service advisories directly via email.
Dallas Trash Issues Ongoing
At its last meeting, Dallas City Manager TC Broadnax was given another raise along with the City Secretary despite multiple service issues throughout the city.
Last October, Dallas fell one spot in a national survey of cities by Orkin. It fell on spot to sixteen due to a lower rat population per a national survey though those numbers did not account for changes due to COVID19.
The United States Supreme Court will not hear N-Word Case in local labor case.
The nation’s highest court said Monday it would not take the case of a former Parkland Hospital employee who said he was subjected to a hostile work environment due to graffiti in one elevator that used the N-word. The court did not comment in turning away the case. It was one of many the court rejected Monday.
N-Word Case Background
Robert Collier said that during the seven years he worked as an operating room aide at Parkland, white nurses called him and other Black employees “boy.” He also said management ignored two large swastikas painted on a storage room wall. He sued the hospital after he was fired in 2016.
More recently Parkland lost several thousand dollars in a COVID19 test theft and the taxpayer funded hospital has had numerous cost issues with its recent construction.
Chad West lashes out after he posted on Facebook that he was on the receiving end of “several calls and messages last night from neighbors who experienced 2, 3, 4 and even 6-hour waits at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center yesterday for their COVID19 vaccination appointments.”
Council Member West seemed dismayed at the Mayor, but the entire City Council has been acting as one observer noted “like a bunch of petulant children.”
This local political actist noted “if the Mayor and City Council had to rely on one another for mutual survival, they’d all be done six months ago. Every one of them is more interested in their memo or tweet to score political points than in listening and fixing problems and they are ignoring people with the experience to do help.”
Chad West Lashes Out – In Wrong Direction?
The angry Facebook post came the same day Dallas County reported 1,617 new COVID19 cases and a dozen deaths.
In late January, Dallas County Commissioner’s Court voted 3-0 with two abstentions to prioritize vaccine distribution to certain zip codes leaving black and brown citizens in other areas at the end of the line. An emergency meeting was required after the decision once the Texas Department of State Health Services reminded Dallas County of their obligations under their hub contract to serve everyone.
Per a local school site, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) is interfering in local direction again. COVID19 response plans have been shot down by Commissioner Mike Morath. He has rejected a proposal submitted by dozens of South Texas superintendents earlier this week that would have given districts the ability to continue a mostly remote instruction curriculum should COVID19 numbers surge over the winter break. While this decision does not impact Dallas now, it could if COVID19 numbers continue to rise.
South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley has faced a disproportionate number of COVID19 numbers. The Rio Grande Valley is just 4.7% of the entire Texas population, but accounts for 17% of deaths throughout Texas.
At a press conference Tuesday, Cortez and McAllen Superintendent J.A. Gonzalez outlined the plan, which would have included a waiver allowing districts to continue online instruction for 100% of families in areas with a hospitalization rate greater than 15% without having district funding affected. It also requested rapid COVID-19 tests be made available for priority students who do choose to attend on campus, with Cortez and Gonzalez citing potential superspreader events over the holidays as a chief motivator for the proposal.
TEA COVID19 Response and Funding
TEA has a long standing problem on the COVID19 question.
Dallas ISD Trustees Mackey and Michiche have previously both publicly stated it is better if students stay home and learn virtually. COVID19 continues to hit school after school including shutting down two campuses and numerous classrooms.
County Judge Clay Jenkins issued a written statement saying in part: “The improving numbers, while early, are an indication that residents are renewing their strength and engaging in shared sacrifice and patriotism to keep our community and our country strong until such time as the vaccine can be widely distributed and have its effect.”
Dallas County recently announced it is counting only positive antigen tests – also known as rapid tests – as probable cases. In other notifications of results, antibody and “household” results were included.
1675 New COVID19
November Dallas County hit 1500 daily cases. These rising cases are also contributing to the nearly 1600 in Dallas Independent School District. In early November, that number was less than 800.
The rising numbers do not appear to be stopping multiple public events where attendees forgo masks though meaning numbers will continue to rise.
