Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston metro areas among the first Texas areas with decreasing trend of new Covid-19 cases

Fort Worth, Texas – Some areas in Texas like Fort Worth, Dallas and Houston metro areas are seeing decreasing trend in new Covid-19 cases recently, health officials informed.

Although this doesn’t necessarily mean that these areas reached the peak of the Omicron wave, the most recent trend comes as a relief for the local residents in these areas.

A concerning factor still remains the high fatality rate, but if the number of new cases continues to decline, the number of Covid-19 relate deaths will start to also decrease in the upcoming period.

Texas’ Chief Epidemiologist Dr. Jennifer Shuford says some of the state’s largest communities have made it over the mountain.

“Texas is a big place. And so, there are some communities like the Houston area or the Dallas-Fort Worth area where we’re seeing good decreases in cases,” she said. “The areas that got hit earliest with the omicron surge seem to have a good decrease in their cases currently.”

According to the most recent data provided by the hospitals in the North Texas area, the number of hospitalized patients remains under 4,000 which is lower compared to the nearly 4,200 patients that were hospitalized as a result of the virus during last week.

The lower number of patients across the hospitals in the area and the lower number of new cases is encouraging momentum, but local residents should still follow and implement the well-known pandemic measures since nearly a third of people are still testing positive.

“We are at almost historic numbers of new cases being reported to us every day even over the last day,” Dr. Shuford said. “We had 30,000 new confirmed cases reported to us but far more than what we have seen in previous surges.”

In addition to the pandemic measures, health experts also encourage parents to vaccinate their children, a category with the lowest vaccination rates. According to the recent data provided by the state health officials, only nearly a quarter of all children in Texas aged five to eleven are vaccinated with at lest one dose, while around 16% are fully vaccinated.

“There’s plenty of vaccines all across the state,” Dr. Shuford said. “And pediatricians are recommending that those parents get their kids vaccinated to protect them not only against COVID but against those long-term complications from COVID and MIS-C, which can be a shorter-term but very severe complications from COVID-19.”

While hospitals are still overwhelmed with patients and the number of active cases is very high, doctors from local hospitals are optimistic omicron leaves us as quickly as it arrived.

The best thing one can do is getting vaccinated, while wearing masks, maintaining social distance and washing hands regularly throughout the day are highly advised.