County officials devise plan to count COVID recoveries more effectively. Here’s what they are doing.
Erath County officials learned Friday that seven more people have tested positive for COVID-19.
Six of those patients live in Stephenville and one Dublin. They are all isolating at home.
“We received partial results of the mobile testing performed on July 6,” Judge Alfonso Campos said in a press release. “After verifying the positives we ended up with eight new cases in Erath County.”
An additional 100 tests are still pending.
“We have had questions about the number of patients that have recovered, but not counted as such,” Campos said. “Chief Jimmy Chew, Stephenville EMC and myself have been working with the staff at DSHS to come up with a process to determine the most effective way to estimate the number of active cases.
“We have decided to use a 14 days since testing results model. After the patient receives test results, they will be considered recovered 14 days later unless something indicates they are still sick.
“It is our hope that our numbers will reflect a more accurate count.”
Using the model, officials have determined that 119 people have recovered.
“That brings our positive cases to 272 and 152 active cases,” Campos said. “Our case counts will still not match DSHS because there is an inherent lag time in their system.”