Editor’s note: This is the latest information reported by Collin County, Denton County and the state of Texas through their dashboards.
Since Thanksgiving, 27 Collin County residents who were confirmed to have COVID-19 have died, according to the latest data.
COVID-19 hospitalizations have increased in North Texas since Thanksgiving gatherings. Since Thanksgiving Day, the percentage of COVID-19 patients occupying hospital beds in Collin County has increased nearly 70%.
Collin County has 3,851 active COVID-19 cases as of Dec. 22, according to state estimates. For comparison, on Nov. 5, the county's number of active cases was estimated to be 1,471. That is an increase of nearly 162%.
Since Thanksgiving, COVID-19 hospitalizations have increased significantly in Denton and Collin counties—enough to trigger ramped-up restrictions.
Hospitalizations in Collin County have increased nearly 70% since Thanksgiving. As of Dec. 22, COVID-19 patients account for more than 16% of hospitalized patients in Collin County.
Collin County’s COVID-19 dashboard lists only hospitalizations. The Collin County Commissioners Court voted 3-2 on Nov. 9 to remove most data, citing inaccuracies and a lack of confidence in the state’s numbers.
Previous data for any metric other than daily hospitalizations cannot be accessed retroactively through the county’s dashboard or through public information requests, according to Tim Wyatt, public information officer for Collin County.
For nearly every day over the last two weeks, COVID-19 hospitalized patients accounted for more than 15% of total hospital capacity in Trauma Service Area E, which consists of 19 counties in North Texas.
Per an October executive order issued by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, municipal governments are required to tighten restrictions for most businesses if COVID-19 patients occupy 15% or more of the available hospital beds for seven consecutive days in a specific trauma service area.
On Dec. 3, when Trauma Service Area E passed the 15% threshold for seven consecutive days, restaurants and most businesses were required to reduce capacity from 75% to 50%, and bars were required to close. Businesses will be allowed to increase capacity once COVID-19 hospitalizations for the area are below 15% for seven days in a row. As of Dec. 22, COVID-19 patients occupy almost 20% of available hospital beds in Trauma Service Area E.
In McKinney, the age groups with the highest number of COVID-19 infections since March are people in their 20s and people in their 40s, according to McKinney’s COVID-19 dashboard.
As of Dec. 22, there are 692 active COVID-19 cases in McKinney, bringing the total cases since March in the city to 6,481.
In Texas, there were 8,107 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported Dec. 22, bringing the total since March to 1.41 million, according to the state's dashboard.
