The county's COVID-19 dashboard puts the total number of hospital beds occupied by confirmed COVID-19 cases at 229 as of July 14.
During a presentation on July 6, Tarrant County Director of Public Health Vinny Taneja said that number had been fewer than 100 earlier in June. Taneja also said the majority of hospitalizations recently seen are from unvaccinated individuals.
“We’re taking a turn up—things are starting to perk up again in COVID-world,” he told county commissioners during a briefing. “We’re going fast on hospitalizations.”
As of July 14, Tarrant County has reported 175 new cases. Its community spread level has been classified back up to substantial after dropping down to moderate earlier this year.
To mitigate the spread of the delta variant, the public is encouraged to get vaccinated if they have not done so yet. As of July 6, only 30% of Tarrant County’s population has been fully vaccinated, with another 33% having received at least one dose of the two-dose vaccinations, according to county public health data.
According to the CDC, a community reaches herd immunity if 70% of the population is fully vaccinated.
Over 1.5 million doses have been administered countywide as of July 6. Tarrant County has had 91 breakthrough cases, referring to vaccinated individuals who still caught COVID-19, Taneja said. However, he explained that none of the breakthrough cases had resulted in hospitalization.
“That’s a minuscule number and none of those, as far as I know, reported being hospitalized,” he said. “[The vaccine] is working well in our communities. We just need more of it.”
Locally, Southlake and Colleyville have near 60% of their total population fully vaccinated. Grapevine and Keller are approaching 50% for fully vaccinated. Northeast Fort Worth has just around 45% of its population fully vaccinated.
Individuals looking for a vaccine can register on the Tarrant County website here: https://tcph.quickbase.com/db/bq98sxk7f
