Health officials in Dallas say a steady increase in COVID-19 cases in the past few weeks is troubling, especially ahead of Thanksgiving. They're worried about the possibility of holiday parties or family gatherings spreading the novel coronavirus.
"Our numbers have continued to rise," said Dr. Kelvin Baggett, Healthcare Access Czar for the City of Dallas. "We're beginning to see numbers we have not seen in a couple of months."
Local health officials are waiting for data to show if Halloween had any impact on COVID-19 infection rates. The next big holiday in November could also have an impact.
"We're at a critical inflection point," said Dr. Baggett, "and what we do as a community around Thanksgiving may create either an opportunity to see a decline in this or a dramatic increase. If people behave as they traditionally have...we could actually see numbers that put us back to where we were in July."
City and county officials are urging people to maintain social distancing practices and to continue wearing masks to help keep the infection rate low.
"One of the hospital systems said if the rates continue as they're currently seeing it, in two weeks we would probably get to the peak hospitalization levels of what we saw anytime during the summer, so comparable to mid-July," said Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Dr. Philip Huang. "It's very, very concerning."
