In North Texas, there are now 3,451 hospital patients suffering from COVID-19, and only 76 available ICU beds.
Tarrant County Public Health Director Vinny Taneja says the COVID-19 pandemic is on track to becoming the biggest pandemic in U.S. history.
"The biggest pandemic we've had on recorded history was the 1918 Spanish flu, 675,000 recorded U.S. deaths. We're a hair shy of that," Taneja said.
Taneja says while the numbers in Tarrant County have flattened over the last several weeks, they're still a very high 21 percent positivity rate, around 20 deaths per day, and a hospitalization rate near that of January's peak.
Meanwhile, in Dallas County the challenge continues to get people vaccinated.
While the number of new COVID-19 cases is on a slight decline in Dallas County, Dr. Phillip Huang director of Dallas County Health says there are still 1.1 million residents that haven't even gotten one dose of the vaccine.
"We're trying to go to where people are, that's why we've continued the pop-up vaccination site at Fair Park as we consistently get close to 500 every time we stand it up. It's not 12,000, but it's 500 which is good," Huang said.
The state fair will offer coupons to Dallas County residents if they get a vaccine on site. County Judge Clay Jenkins says even if they get a small percentage of the expected 100,00 daily visitors to get the vaccine, it's going to help.
69% of Dallas County residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
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