DALLAS — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have raised Dallas County’s COVID-19 level to red as cases and hospitalizations continue to climb.
Under the red designation, which signifies high community spread, the CDC recommends that everyone wear masks indoors and on public transit. That differs from the yellow designation, which recommends indoor masking only for individuals with high risk of severe illness.
Tarrant and Collin counties are also listed as red, while Denton County is still listed at the yellow level.
Two highly-contagious omicron sub-variants, BA.4 and BA.5, represent more than 75% of samples tested by University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center researchers, according to the center’s latest COVID-19 forecast.
Dallas County’s own internal COVID-19 level was in the low-risk green category less than two weeks ago until Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins moved it to yellow using the county’s rating system. Dallas County has not yet changed its internal COVID-19 level from yellow, said Dr. Philip Huang, the county’s top public health official.
“Transmission is definitely increasing a lot, hospital numbers are going up and people should be more cautious,” Huang said. “I wouldn’t say it’s an inconsistent message. I think they’ve got a different scoring system.”
The CDC measures community spread level using a combination of three metrics: new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people, the percent of inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients and total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people.
Huang said the county bases its internal designation on a number of indicators and that there is no one metric that triggers a change in COVID-19 level. Dallas County also uses a four color system: Green, yellow, orange and red.
The public health committee, which recommends COVID-19 rating changes to Judge Jenkins, will meet next Tuesday. Jenkins said he doesn’t know whether the committee will recommend raising the county’s internal rating.
Infectious disease experts from the area’s major medical institutions, including UT Southwestern and Baylor Scott & White Health, make up the committee, which Jenkins said looks at a variety of data points more closely than the CDC is able to.
“This doesn’t mean that the public shouldn’t pay heed to the recommendations of the CDC,” Jenkins said.
More than 725 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in North Texas as of Wednesday, according to data from the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council. Hospitalizations are still far lower than the more-than 4,000 reported at the peak of the omicron wave in late January.
The surge of severe infections during the original omicron wave rocked hospitals across the region that struggled to maintain staff numbers as employees contracted the contagious variant.
Case counts are likely much higher than reported, as more people test for the virus at home or forgo testing altogether.
BA.5, which recently took over as the dominant COVID-19 strain in the U.S., appears to cause less severe disease than its predecessors, but some groups are still at risk, including the immunocompromised and people over the age of 65.
A total of 6,578 people in Dallas County have died from the coronavirus as of Wednesday.
Huang said the COVID-19 vaccine and booster are the best defense against the virus. Anyone age 5 and older can receive a booster dose, while those older than 50 or older than 12 and immunocompromised can receive a second booster dose at least four months after their first.
Federal regulators have approved a child-sized dose of the COVID-19 vaccine for children between the ages of 6 months and 4 years. The age group can receive either the Moderna vaccine series, which requires two doses four to eight weeks apart, or the Pfizer series, which requires three doses about eight weeks apart.
Recommendations for avoiding COVID-19 in the red risk level
—Wear a mask indoors when in public
—Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines, including booster doses
—Get tested if you notice any COVID-19 symptoms
—Increase ventilation when indoors by turning on fans or opening windows to increase air circulation
