The positivity rate for people who receive tests for COVID-19 at Texas Medical Center hospitals has remained under a target threshold of 5% for two consecutive weeks as of Sept. 19, according to TMC data.
A low positivity rate is one of three metrics TMC officials are tracking that they say may indicate a declining spread of the virus. The other two metrics include the number of new cases per day in the nine-county Greater Houston area and the effective reproduction rate, which tracks how many new people are infected by each person who gets the virus.
The number of new cases is still higher than the target of less than 200 per day, but the effective reproduction rate has met the target for 10 consecutive days as of Sept. 19.
Another 1,372 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Harris County over the Sept. 19-20 weekend along with 48 deaths caused by the virus. Newly confirmed cases and deaths are not necessarily tied to tests conducted or deaths that occurred on those days. Some cases and deaths are from weeks past and are only now being confirmed due to backlogs.
