Active COVID Case Count Doubled Over The Last 2 1/2 Weeks In Hopkins County

3 COVID Deaths Confirmed For Hopkins County In Last 45 Days

Although the number of active COVID cases Texas Department of State Health Services has reported this week are lower than those reported from August through November, the active case count for Hopkins County has more than doubled in the last 2 1/2 weeks. Three additional Hopkins County residents are also confirmed to have died from COVID over the last 45 days as well, according to the DSHS Daily Case Counts dashboard reports.

As was the case earlier in the year, just when it seemed COVID had been licked or at least reduced to less than 25 active cases among county residents daily from June 27 to July 16, the case count has begun rising again. From July 17 through Sept. 14 as the Delta variant spread across the world, Hopkins County went from having 29 residents who actively had COVID to 498 active cases.

Things appeared to have turned around for Hopkins County, as the number of active cases among Hopkins County residents dropped from 484 on Sept. 15 to 40 active cases on Nov. 28, 2021. People have begun returning to normal practices, holding events and gatherings with increasingly more people in attendance and fewer of the health precautions observed last fall and winter or even as early as spring and the start of the school observed. Instead of the rule and norm, individuals wearing facemasks has become the exception again, with fewer face covering worn in offices, school, stores or the public in general.

However, the virus is once again on the rise in Hopkins County. In fact, the active case count among Hopkins County residents has more than doubled, rising from 40 Nov. 28 to 44 Nov. 29, then 57 on the last day of the month. The active case count peaked at 74 the first week of December, fluctuating between 60 and 75. In only one of the past 8 days have there been less than 80 Hopkins County residents reported to actively have the virus. On Dec. 15, 2021, the active case count for Hopkins County was 90. That’s 50 more people than on Nov. 28, including 21 in the past 2 days (10 new confirmed cases on Dec. 14 and 11 on Dec. 15).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest data shows that to be a high transmission rate and recommends that “Everyone in Hopkins County, Texas should wear a mask in public, indoor settings. Mask requirements might vary from place to place.” The CDC reports 46 cases and two new hospital admissions for Hopkins County on Dec. 16. The county had a 4.92 percent positivity rate from Dec. 6 to Dec. 12.

DSHS reports that 98.3 percent of Texans (171 individuals) who had COVID from Nov. 28 to Dec. 4, 2021, were determined to have the Delta variant; one Texan had Omicron variant and two had another strain of the virus.

Also, DSHS has recently confirmed based on cause listed on death certificates recorded by the state’s vital statistics office that three additional Hopkins County residents have died from COVID since Oct. 22: one person each died on Nov. 5, Nov. 22 and the latest on Dec. 4, a day in which 68 Hopkins County residents were reported to actively have the virus. That makes 149 Hopkins County residents who have died from COVID since the virus began, 84 in 2020 and 65 Hopkins County COVID deaths in 2021.

From March 21, 2020 to Dec. 15, 2021, a total of 3,291 Hopkins County residents have been confirmed by lab testing to have contracted the virus and another 2,289 probable cases, determined by the CDC definition, which counts as a probable case any person who has either tested positive through an antigen test or has a combination of symptoms and a known exposure to someone with COVID without a more likely diagnosis. Altogether, that’s a cumulative 5,580 Hopkins County residents who’ve had COVID since March of 2020, including 5,340 who’ve recovered.