FORT WORTH, Texas — In case you missed it, here are four COVID updates from the first Tarrant County Commissioners’ meeting of 2022, which was held Tuesday:
The county's positivity rate is at a record high
Data shows the positivity rate in Tarrant County is just over 35%, a number Public Health Director Vinny Taneja said is “a record high for the pandemic."
“(Of the) people that are getting tested, one in three are coming back positive,” Taneja said. “That’s a huge number in our community.”
No surprise: Demand for COVID testing has skyrocketed
Before Christmas, testing sites were seeing 10 to 15 people a day on average, according to Taneja. Now, the public health director said some sites are seeing close to 1,000 people a day.
As a result? Delays and frustration that you probably know firsthand.
“I did hear quite a few complaints about people waiting four, five, six days for test results,” Tarrant County Commissioner Devan Allen told the court Tuesday.
So what’s being done?
Taneja said plans are in the works to open more testing sites, including possibly one in White Settlement next week.
The Tarrant County Sheriff's Office is getting some help
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office accepted a donation of 10,000 rapid COVID tests from the Texas Army National Guard for the second year in a row.
This week, TCSO announced 173 inmates have tested positive in the Tarrant County jail.
The county is encouraging residents to use its website -- not Google -- to find testing locations
Taneja said he’s aware of the long wait times people have experienced at various testing sites recently -- a problem that's not unique to Tarrant County.
He said the county keeps its website updated, which can be a more effective tool than Google when trying to find an available and convenient testing location.
Once on the website, scroll down and click on “Additional Testing Sites” to view more links and a Google map showing more locations.