Three more people died due to complications related to COVID-19 throughout the Rio Grande Valley, county officials reported Friday.
One of those individuals was a resident of Hidalgo County where officials also reported an additional 818 positive cases of the coronavirus disease.
The death, that of a woman older than 70 who was from an undisclosed location within the county, brings the total number of COVID-related deaths to 2,704, according to a news release issued by the county.
Of the 818 new cases, 765 are confirmed cases, 51 are probable cases, and two are suspected cases. The county reported that there have been a total of 52,846
The county reports that there have been 52,846 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic along with 26,368 probable cases and 1,241 suspected cases.
Currently, 2,280 cases are considered active.
In hospitals within the county, there are 155 COVID-19 patients of which 67 are being treated in an intensive care unit.
Cameron County health officials reported two COVID-related deaths and 38 new cases on Friday.
The two additional individuals lost to the COVID-19 pandemic — a Brownsville man in his 70s and a Harlingen woman in her 60s — bring the total number of deaths in the county to 1,534, according to a news release issued by the county.
With the 38 new cases, there are now a total of 37,917 confirmed cases in Cameron County of which 4,135 are active cases.
Throughout all of Public Health Region 11 — a 19-county area in South Texas which includes the Rio Grande Valley — state health officials said they were seeing an improvement in the case numbers.
“Our seven-day increase for the last seven days was just at 1,300 which is about 75% down from just two weeks ago,” said Dr. Elizabeth Cuevas with the Texas Department of State Health Services. “So we’re seeing some pretty significant case decreases and in line with that, which is more reassuring news, we’re seeing decreased hospitalizations.”
In the Rio Grande Valley’s trauma service area, or TSA, Cuevas said COVID-19 hospitalizations were down to just 7% of all hospitalizations.
Over the last two weeks, COVID-19 hospitalizations in the Valley’s TSA — which includes Hidalgo, Cameron, Starr and Willacy counties — have gone down from 329 on Feb. 25 to 259 on March 11, a 21% decrease.
“These are very positive indicators that we are seeing less COVID in our community, both with the case count being down (and) the hospitalizations being down,” Cuevas said. “Things are going in the right direction.”
