We’re keeping track of the most up-to-date news about the coronavirus in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. Check back for updates.

As COVID trends down, Tarrant health officials urge you to stay home for Labor Day

With Labor Day approaching, Tarrant County officials warned Tuesday that the public must avoid large gatherings and keep celebrations within an immediate family setting to avoid a spike of coronavirus cases.

At Tuesdays Commissioners Court meeting, Vinny Taneja, the county’s public health director, told the court that the county’s key COVID-19 statistics continue to trend downward, but again, it’s no time to relax, especially with the holiday coming up.

Hospitalizations in the county continue to go down with 7% of all occupied hospital beds being used by COVID-19 patients, according to county data. This number is down from the peak of 20% the county reported a month ago.

The positivity rate is at 9%, and it has been for the past week, Taneja said. It needs to be down to 5%, he said. Officials have said the downward trend is because of the mask mandate.

One of the most common factors for new cases are family gatherings, he said.

“Stay home,” he said. “Enjoy with your individual family.”

Fort Worth ISD could suffer as some families choose in-person classes at other schools

Lyndsay Hoover was shocked at the difference between her two kids’ online classes last spring, after schools stopped in-person classes.

Hoover’s son was a second-grader at Tanglewood Elementary School in Fort Worth. Her daughter was a fourth-grader in private school. Neither school’s online classes were ideal, Hoover said. But her daughter’s school gave her lots of live instruction and plenty of opportunities to interact with her teacher, and the platform the school used was simple enough that her daughter didn’t need much help.

Meanwhile, her son’s classes from Fort Worth ISD were hard to access and too complicated for him to navigate on his own. There was no live teaching, no interaction and no engagement, she said, so the classes didn’t hold his attention for more than a few minutes at a time.

So this year, when Fort Worth ISD announced it would begin the school year online, Hoover and her husband decided to move their son to private school, as well. Hoover said she didn’t think her family had a choice. Her son is in third grade this year, a critical period in a child’s academic development. Education researchers often say third grade is the year children stop learning to read and start reading to learn. If a child isn’t reading on grade level by that time, researchers say it can have severe effects on the child’s academic outlook. Hoover was worried another round of online classes would put him behind and unable to catch up.

“We were risking losing him academically,” she said.

Hoover is among a number of parents — some of whom are part of a loosely organized group — who have removed their children from Fort Worth ISD schools and moved them to private schools, charter schools or homeschooling before the beginning of the school year. Many, like Hoover, were unhappy with the district’s decision to start the school year online and moved their children to schools that returned to school in person at the beginning of the year.

Tarrant County reports 4 more COVID-19 deaths, including an Arlington man in his 40s

Tarrant County reported 243 new coronavirus cases and four deaths on Tuesday.

The pandemic-related deaths include an Arlington man in his 40s, two Arlington women in their 70s and 80s, and a Lake Worth woman in her 80s. All four had underlying health conditions, according to officials.

Tarrant County has reported a total of 41,860 COVID-19 cases, including 556 deaths and an estimated 36,159 recoveries.

The county has averaged 218 cases a day the past week. The previous seven days it averaged 265 cases a day.

Dallas County reports 19 COVID deaths, including 6 with no underlying health issues

Dallas County reported 19 coronavirus deaths and 622 cases on Tuesday.

Of Tuesday’s reported cases, 461 were unreported cases from earlier in the pandemic, including 294 from August, 101 from May, 51 from July, and 14 from June.

The 19 COVID-19 deaths are the most since 24 were reported on Aug. 25.

The 622 cases are the most since 1,086 were reported on Aug. 22. Both totals, however, include unreported cases from earlier in the pandemic. The Texas Department of State Health Services found an error in its data reporting system a month ago and has been working to add those cases to each county’s totals.

The deaths include 12 in Dallas, six in Garland, and one in Mesquite. Six of the patients did not have underlying health conditions.

Estimated active cases over time

Coronavirus daily active case estimates by local counties in the Dallas - Fort Worth metroplex, beginning April 8, 2020. Data provided by Texas Health and Human Services.

Steve Wilson swilson@star-telegram.com

As Fort Worth recovers from COVID, more of a partnership needed from state, mayor says

The economic effect of the novel coronavirus pandemic will leave Fort Worth with a long economic recovery and an estimated $60 million reduction in the city’s general fund over the next three years, Mayor Betsy Price said Monday.

“Fort Worth has been hard hit,” Price said during the “Follow the Leaders” panel at The Texas Tribune Festival.

As the city moves forward, it will need “more of a partnership” with the state, Price said. Local officials have at times clashed with state leaders over setting guidelines for reopening and who has the authority to enforce them.

“It’s been a bit of a struggle,” Price said. “It’s always a struggle to try to get your state officials to understand that we represent the same people they do, but we’re the closest to them. We see them every day.”

Price joined the mayors of Texas’ largest cities, including Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and El Paso, to discuss the coronavirus outbreak, the economic recovery and their response to the civil rights movement decrying police brutality that has swept the nation and their cities.

‘Is the coronavirus a scam?’ School quiz question leads to pushback for Texas teacher

A Texas school district is under fire after an online quiz question posed to junior high students.

A science teacher at Pearland Junior High East asked her students, “Is the coronavirus a scam?” according to a post on the Parents in Pearland Independent School District Facebook page. The answer “True” was shown as the correct answer on the quiz.

The question was part of a quiz meant to familiarize students with their new online system, according to an email from the school principal posted on Facebook. The principal sent a similar statement to KPRC and added an explanation.

“The teacher’s intent was to spark conversation,” Principal Charles Allen told the TV station. “It was not to imply the virus is not serious or to make any political stance. The question has since been taken down.”

Did COVID-19 cause only 6% of coronavirus deaths? Viral posts misrepresent CDC report

A statistic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about coronavirus deaths in the United States has sparked a wave of confusion on social media.

COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, was the “only cause mentioned” on death certificates in 6% of deaths involving the virus, the CDC said last week.

Some people mistakenly took that to mean the remaining 94% of coronavirus-related deaths were caused by other underlying health conditions and not COVID-19.

The misconception went viral on social media; Twitter removed a tweet on Sunday that promoted the false interpretation of the CDC’s data, which President Donald Trump shared to his 85.6 million followers, media outlets reported.

What the CDC’s update really means is that 94% of the people who died from the coronavirus had at least one other health condition, in addition to COVID-19, that could have contributed to their passing — not that the additional factor was the sole reason for it.

In fact, the CDC mentions that “for deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.” This aligns with what the agency has been saying all along.

People over the age of 65 and those with underlying medical conditions such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease and respiratory issues have a higher risk of severe COVID-19 and death from it.