Montgomery County records active COVID-19 case decline, 10 new deaths Nov. 3-16; county crosses 15K cases

Montgomery County's active COVID-19 case count fell below 2,000 on Nov. 16 for the first time in nearly four weeks, but the county surpassed 15,000 cumulative cases reported this year, according to data from the Montgomery County Public Health District.

The updates follow the county health district's upgrade to its COVID-19 case reporting database Nov. 12 to the Texas Health Trace system now in use across the state, a change that resulted in a pause on daily case reports Nov. 6-11. According to the county agency, the shift to Texas Health Trace will improve data reporting and any potential assistance from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

As of Nov. 16, a total of 1,915 COVID-19 cases were reported as active in Montgomery County. That represents a 20% decrease from the nearly 2,400 cases that were active as of Nov. 13, the highest active case count recorded from Nov. 3-16. The public health district attributed the large drop in part to the addition of more than 600 previously reported recoveries Nov. 16 that were not added during the database transition last week.

Since Nov. 2, the county's cumulative case count rose by 868, to a total of 15,095 cases. While the transition to Texas Health Trace did not result in any changes to the county's previously reported case figures, a total of 78 cases that were added to the county's total earlier this year were transferred to other health departments Nov. 4 after contact investigations identified them as non-Montgomery County residents.

More than 3,000 confirmed cases in the county representing just over 20% of the cumulative total are now listed as inactive, which means that county staff were not able to contact them within 30 days of their initial report.

Clinical recoveries from COVID-19 grew by more than 10% from Nov. 3-16. After reaching 9,933 on Nov. 16 with the addition of backlogged reports, just under two thirds of all Montgomery County cases are confirmed to have recovered from the disease.

Ten deaths related to COVID-19 were also reported Nov. 3-16, bringing the number of Montgomery County resident fatalities related to the disease to 165. The 10 new deaths included men and women from Conroe, Magnolia, Montgomery, Pinehurst, Porter and Spring ranging in age from their 40s to their 90s.

Over the past two weeks, the number of county residents hospitalized with COVID-19 fell by 50%, from 38 as of Nov. 2 to 19 as of Nov. 16. Total COVID-19 hospitalizations, regardless of patients' county of residence, rose by over 64% during the same period, from 70 as of Nov. 2 to 115 as of Nov. 16, according to data from the Southeast Texas Advisory Council.