DALLAS (KRLD) - Dallas County is reporting five additional "presumptive positive" cases of coronavirus, and County Judge Clay Jenkins has declared a State of Emergency. Jenkins issued the Local Disaster Declaration for Public Health Emergency Thursday night.
"I don't want people to panic, but I do want people to understand it's a serious situation," he says.
The declaration bans public and private gatherings of more than 500 people anywhere in the county for the next week and "strongly recommends" cancelling or rescheduling events with more than 250 people.
"I know Dallas County is up to the challenge. Our people always rise to the challenge, just as we have in tornadoes and in crises before this," Jenkins says. "Ask yourself the question as you do things, 'Is this worth the risk, not just to me, but the community?'"
The declaration begins at 11 a.m. Friday and runs for one week. The public health emergency could then be extended.
The restriction on large gatherings does not include schools, office buildings, airports, movie theaters or other areas where groups of 500 or more people are likely to gather "in multiple, separate enclosed spaces in a single building."
A total of eight cases of coronavirus have now been confirmed or reported in Dallas County. Among the five cases reported Thursday night, two people are in the hospital; three are "self-isolating" at home.
The patients include two women: one is in her 70s, and one is in her 60s. Three are men: one in his 40s, one in his 50s and one in his 60s. Four live in the City of Dallas. The fifth lives in Balch Springs.
Dallas County says one person traveled internationally, and two others traveled out of state. One case is believed to be a transmission from a close contact, but the fifth has had no contact with someone who has traveled.
"This indicates that we have community spread of COVID-19 in Dallas County," Jenkins says.
"Up until now, we have been in containment mode," says Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Phil Huang. "We're continuing containment to the extent that we can, but we're moving to some of the social distancing, mitigation efforts to really slow the spread of this highly contagious disease."
Huang says people should limit large gatherings, but gatherings of people at "increased risk" should be limited to ten or fewer people.
Those groups include people who are older or have underlying health conditions.
Huang says the current death rate for people aged 60-69 is four percent. The death rate is eight percent for people aged 70-79 is eight percent, and the death rate is 15 percent for people 80 and older.
The death rate is 11 percent for people with heart disease and seven percent for people with diabetes.
"The goal of social distancing is to protect those populations who are at increased risk," Huang says. "The other goal is really to protect our health care system and to protect our health care workers and infrastructure. And also to slow this down, so our healthcare system isn't overwhelmed as we've seen in some of the other countries."
