COVID-19 is spiking nationwide. How severe is the surge in Tarrant County?

In some ways, the ongoing nationwide COVID-19 surge may feel like déjà vu. But while the numbers are rising, they also provide evidence that this spike isn’t quite the same as past ones.

The surge has seized much of the country — the CDC reported this week that about 50% of counties across the country have a “high” level of virus transmission, which is an increase of 18% over the prior seven days. But a CDC map also shows that Southern states especially are painted in red, which indicates high levels of virus spread.

Texas is no exception.

The state is reporting an average of more than 5,000 new cases per day, state data shows, compared to the early June average of less than 1,000. Texas’ coronavirus hospitalizations have increased by more than three-fold in the past month. The number of coronavirus patients in Texas hospitals has risen from just over 1,400 in late June to about 5,300 on Tuesday.

At the same time, however, the numbers aren’t nearly as grim as they were in January, when the state saw the peak of a massive coronavirus surge. And, at least so far, Texas’ surge hasn’t led to a significant rise in COVID-19 deaths.

A bird’s-eye view of the data shows that, while the surge is not on the scale of the winter spike, it’s still significant.

Nationwide, the spike has triggered the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to once again recommend masking in coronavirus hotspots, even for vaccinated residents, and has led state and national officials to call for the unvaccinated to get their shots.

And in Tarrant County, the highly contagious delta variant is posing particular risks for neighborhoods with low vaccination rates.

Community spread

Tarrant County’s COVID-19 case count is rising once again after several weeks of declining numbers.

In the week ending July 24, the county saw 2,471 new cases, according to county data. Less than two months earlier, when cases dropped to their lowest point since testing became widespread, the county reported 479 new cases in a one-week period.

Compared to the low point at the beginning of June, Tarrant County is seeing more than five times as many new cases. That increase has been accompanied by a swiftly rising positivity rate, which is the percent of coronavirus tests that come back positive.

On Sunday, the county’s seven-day average positivity rate hit 19%. That’s more than four times the county’s positivity rate one month prior, according to county data; it’s also more than three times the nationwide positivity rate, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

Still, the ongoing surge pales in comparison to the spike in early 2021. At the height of the winter surge, in early January, Tarrant County saw 18,529 new cases in one week, with a seven-day positivity rate that topped 30%.

But while the county’s increasing case count is not on the level of the January spike, it’s still triggering a rise in hospitalizations.

Tarrant County’s coronavirus hospitalizations have been ticking up since mid-June, when the number of confirmed hospitalized COVID-19 patients briefly dipped below 100. The number of hospitalized patients in the county has more than quintupled in the month and a half since then.

On June 19, there were 88 confirmed COVID-19 patients in the hospital. By Tuesday, there were 457.

“Unfortunately, we’re leading by numbers — not by percentage points because some of the smaller counties don’t have that much capacity — but by numbers we’ve got quite a bit,” said Vinny Taneja, the Tarrant County public health director, at a Tuesday meeting.

Taneja added that the spike in hospitalizations is “still a far cry” from the winter surge, when more than 1,500 patients were hospitalized at once.

And while cases and hospitalizations are rising once again, the county has not seen deaths rise. The county reported 10 new deaths in the week ending July 24, which is approximately on par with the number of deaths reported for the past month or two. However, some experts have noted that coronavirus deaths often lag significantly behind case counts — it can be a month or longer before a rise in cases results in a similar rise in deaths.

However, former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Dr. Scott Gottlieb tweeted earlier this month that, in the United Kingdom, hospitalizations and deaths are not increasing nearly as quickly as cases. That, Gottlieb said, is an indication that the “most vulnerable” people are protected by the coronavirus vaccines.

So while Texas and Tarrant County may yet see deaths rise, the effect may be dampened by vaccination. However, for the unvaccinated, COVID-19 still poses a serious risk.

‘Further evidence of getting the vaccine’

The most significant difference between the ongoing surge and past surges is that COVID-19 vaccines are widely available this time around. That has meant that vaccinated people have largely avoided the severe illness and death that’s ripping through unvaccinated populations.

Although there are some relatively uncommon instances of coronavirus cases in vaccinated people, COVID-19 has largely become “a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” as CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said earlier this month.

But in some states, including Texas, large swaths of the population are unvaccinated.

Just over 50% of the Texas population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to CDC data. That means that nearly 50% of Texans — including those under age 12 who are not yet eligible for a vaccine — have not received even one dose of a vaccine.

That rate places Texas about seven percentage points behind the national average. And in some ZIP codes of Fort Worth, the vaccination rates are significantly lower than the state’s rate.

As a whole, 55% of county residents have received at least one dose, according to county data. But a number of neighborhoods have rates below 40%. In the ZIP code 76105, just over 35% of people have received at least one dose. And in the neighboring 76119, the rate is just over 32%.

That means that, in some Fort Worth and Tarrant County neighborhoods, fewer than 1 in 3 residents are vaccinated, leaving 2 in 3 residents openly vulnerable to the spreading virus.

Both local and national data shows that people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are unlikely to catch the virus in the first place, and unlikely to end up in the hospital if they do catch the virus.

In Tarrant County, about 99% of coronavirus cases from March to June were among unvaccinated people, the Star-Telegram previously reported. And statewide, 99.5% of coronavirus deaths since early February were among unvaccinated people, The Texas Tribune reported.

Local officials have urged vaccination for the holdouts.

“I would say to folks: this is further evidence of getting the vaccine,” said Glen Whitley, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court judge, at Tuesday’s meeting. “If you didn’t get the vaccine, you’re ending up in the hospital.”

But while urging vaccination, the county commissioners have also been frustrated with the lack of progress in some neighborhoods with low vaccination rates. Earlier this month, the county announced it had terminated a vaccination contract with the University of North Texas Health Science Center. Commissioner Roy Brooks said at the July 6 meeting that he was “tremendously disappointed” with the lack of vaccination progress.

And for those who are unvaccinated, the stakes are only rising as the delta variant continues to spread.

“Most people will either get vaccinated — or have been previously infected — or they will get this delta variant,” said Gottlieb, the former FDA commissioner, during a Face the Nation appearance earlier this month. “And for most people who get this delta variant, it’s going to be the most serious virus that they get in their lifetime, in terms of the risk of putting them in the hospital.”