Denton County is reporting its highest case numbers Monday with 592 new cases. Meanwhile, the county's ICU beds are in short supply.
Denton County doesn't report on Sundays, so the numbers are combined for two days.
The county has five ICU beds available as of Monday, marking the county's fewest number of available ICU beds since the county started tracking ICU occupancy, said spokesperson Jennifer Rainey.
There have been 26,623 cases and 158 deaths in the county since tracking began in March.
Over 50% of the county's ICU beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients.
In Collin County, health officials reported a record-high for hospitalizations Monday.
In Tarrant County, hospitalizations of confirmed COVID-19 patients rose from 842 on Sunday to 875 on Monday, making up 23% of all occupied hospital beds. Confirmed COVID-19 patients in ICU beds lowered from 198 to 195.
The Tarrant County record high of COVID-19 patients occupying hospital beds was 896 on Nov. 30.
Tarrant and Dallas counties continue to report more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases a day. On Monday, Tarrant County reported 1,850 new cases and Dallas County reported 1,663 new cases.
Tarrant County reported 11 additional deaths and Dallas County has three additional deaths, health officials said.
The deaths include:
- A woman from Sansom Park in her 90s
- A man from Fort Worth in his 90s
- A woman from Crowley in her 80s
- A man and woman from Arlington in their 80s
- A man from Bedford in his 80s
- A man from Haltom City in his 70s
- A woman from Arlington in her 70s
- A woman from Fort Worth in her 60s
- A woman from Azle in her 60s
- A man from Fort Worth in his 50s.
All had underlying health conditions, officials said.
Tarrant County has the third-highest cumulative cases in the state. Dallas County has the second-highest and Harris County has the most cumulative cases, according to the state health dashboard.
Of the new cases in Dallas County, 1,606 were probable and 57 probable cases.
Dallas County's three additional deaths included:
- A Dallas man in his 60s who had been critically ill in a hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
- A Lancaster woman in her 80s who had been critically ill at a hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
- A DeSoto man in his 90s who had been hospitalized and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
For the week ending on Nov. 28, there were 40.6 new cases per 100,000 residents. The provisional daily seven-day average for cases that week was 1,069.
For symptomatic patients who have gone to hospitals during that week, 22.3% tested positive.
Since Nov. 1, there have been 5,320 COVID-19 cases in school-aged children and staff in the county, health officials said.
There are 790 available ICU beds in Texas as of Sunday afternoon, according to the state dashboard.
Hospitalizations in the North Texas region has dropped below 15% for Saturday and Sunday. Monday's data hasn't been released as of this writing.
If hospitalizations drop below 15% for five consecutive days, reopening at restaurants and other businesses can expand to 75% and bars can reopen if judges allow.
Collin County reports record high hospitalizations
Collin County reported its highest number of people hospitalized Monday with 355 hospitalizations. The last record high was Nov. 17 with 322 hospitalizations.
There were 313 new cases of COVID-19 reported Monday in the county.
There have been 29,554 cases in the county, according to the state dashboard.
44-year-old Forney High School coach dies after battle with COVID-19
Forney High School Coach Jeremy Morgan died Sunday after a battle with COVID-19, officials with Forney ISD said.
Morgan, 44, was the offensive coordinator/tight ends coach for the high school's football team, as well as assistant coach for the softball team.
Morgan's children took to Twitter to share their grief following their father's death. Many in the community replied to their tweets with condolences and memories of Morgan.
Report: Large chunk of PPP loans went to big businesses
The release of data about recipients of the Paycheck Protection Program has revealed that much of the money went to big businesses, with just a small number of businesses receiving about one-quarter of the money that was distributed.
The Small Business Administration recently provided information on more than 5 million loans in response to Freedom of Information Act requests and months of legal battles.
According to The New York Times, about 600 businesses, including dozens of national chains, got $10 million loans, the maximum amount available under the $525 billion program. Only 1% of borrowers received more than a quarter of the total funds given out -- around $143 billion in loans of $1.4 million or more.
