CITY HALL

Williamson County’s daily known coronavirus cases increase by 118 for total of 7,011

Claire Osborn
Austin American-Statesman

Williamson County reported 118 new daily cases of known coronavirus on Tuesday, bringing its total number of confirmed cases to 7,011.

The total number of confirmed cases includes 95 deaths, 5,637 estimated recoveries and 76 people in the hospital.

The number of tests performed in Williamson County as of Tuesday was 47,193, with an average daily positivity rate of 8.25%.

“Although we noticed a spike in the new infection rate, we believe the actual rate of new infections continues to slowly decline, based on the epidemiologic curve,” said a report from the Williamson County and Cities Health District on Tuesday.

“The average daily new infection rate is at 26.4. In a county with 585,379 people, this means about 154 new infections daily.

“Also, due to a reporting backlog at the state, thousands of old tests are being reported for the first time. This is artificially driving down the percent of tests positive, which now stands at 8.25%. We expect this number to rise again once the lab backlog is cleared.“

Round Rock had the most confirmed cases in the county as of Tuesday with a total of 2,194 , including 2,010 recoveries. Georgetown had the second highest number of confirmed cases in the county with 1,197 total cases including 1,070 recoveries.

“Community transmission is still high, considerably higher than CDC's (Center for Disease Control’s) definition for "hot spots,” said the district report for Tuesday.

“This is further complicated by the recent reporting changes at the state level, which affect the timeliness of lab reporting, standards for death reporting, and contact tracing. WCCHD is committed to providing the best data available with 100% transparency.

Despite these challenges, it does appear that true new infections and hospitalizations continue to slowly decline but are at a serious risk of sharply increasing with increased in-person interactions as the school year begins and public fatigue with the pandemic grows.“

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