TARRANT COUNTY (WBAP/KLIF)- The Tarrant County Commissioners Court held a meeting discussing the status of COVID-19 in the county.
Tarrant County Health Director Dr. Vinny Taneja says there are 67 new cases bringing the total to 1,312. Taneja also announced five new deaths, bringing that total to 109. According to the Tarrant County Health website, 809 people have recovered.
Taneja also discusses the launch of the county’s COVID-19 testing website, that helps residents connect to COVID-19 testing resources and gives them the ability to self screen. “About 4,500 people have used the website to do self screening and about 1,900 or so got an appointment to one of our testing locations,” said Taneja. He said the website is seeing good traffic and engagement, however, the number of appointments being made in the county is declining. “We have three locations with about 425 available tests a day and we are not filling these appointments,” said Taneja. Taneja is urging the public to utilize the additional testing capabilities the county now has. He said testing is free under the CARES Act, regardless if you don’t have insurance.
Commissioner Roy Brooks spoke to Taneja about opening up the requirements for more people to get tested in order for workers to feel more comfortable about returning to work as the county begins to open back up.
“Now what we has is that pretty much anyone who has symptoms, or is in a high risk occupation regardless if they are symptomatic or not or have been in contact with a known case regardless if they are symptomatic or not can be testing,” he said.
Taneja explains the high risk occupation falls under all essential workers.
He said the county is working to expand testing even further by opening it up to everyone, regardless of symptoms, but said they don’t have all the resources for that just yet.
The Commissioners Court also discussed the growing number of positive cases at the Federal Medical Center, a Federal Prison for men in Fort Worth. Officials say they are working on a plan to mitigate this issue, including the requirement of all guards to be tested.
