The source of this is reclassification of cases with an unknown outcome. My county did the same thing about a month ago, but the change wasn't as drastic.
I don't know if all Texas county health departments are doing the same, but this county and mine compile reports of confirmed COVID-19 tests from local healthcare providers. It has to be the nose-swab/PCR test, not the antibody test. These are Texas guidelines: any unconfirmed (by swab/PCR) case is only considered "probable".
Once a confirmed case is reported to the county health department, they follow up to attempt to determine the source of the infection (recent foreign travel, contact with a known case, etc.) Then, they follow up on some interval (daily? weekly?) to determine if the patient has recovered. Texas also has criteria for "recovered": either a negative PCR test or 10 days without symptoms. One specific factor: no fever without medication that reduces a fever.
The problem that arose in my county (and in this one): they were no longer able to contact some patients. The reasons haven't been explained: did they move? Did they just stop answering the phone? But without talking to the patient, they weren't able to confirm recovery. So, they just left it as an "active" case.
Like this county, my county defined a new criteria: if they are unable to contact the patient, after some interval they remove him/her from the "active" list. So, a lot of cases dropped off the active list. The cases were real (as it came from health care providers and the PCR test). They just lingered too long on the "active" list.
This is actually very good news. If the number of active cases in Collin county was really under 100 (and the people they can't contact have really recovered), it means the virus has been nearly eliminated. The number of active cases have ticked up to 528 since then:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/
(see yesterday's totals)
But, Collin County has over 1M people. Compared to neighboring Dallas County (which has 19,185 cases and a population of 2.6M), that's an order of magnitude difference in the rate of active cases to population.
The source of this is reclassification of cases with an unknown outcome. My county did the same thing about a month ago, but the change wasn't as drastic.
I don't know if all Texas county health departments are doing the same, but this county and mine compile reports of confirmed COVID-19 tests from local healthcare providers. It has to be the nose-swap/PCR test, not the antibody test. These are Texas guidelines: any unconfirmed (by swab/PCR) case is only considered "probable".
Once a confirmed case is reported to the county health department, they follow up to attempt to determine the source of the infection (recent foreign travel, contact with a known case, etc.) Then, they follow up on some interval (daily? weekly?) to determine if the patient has recovered. Texas also has criteria for "recovered": either a negative PCR test or 10 days without symptoms. One specific factor: no fever without medication that reduces a fever.
The problem that arose in my county (and in this one): they were no longer able to contact some patients. The reasons haven't been explained: did they move? Did they just stop answering the phone? But without talking to the patient, they weren't able to confirm recovery. So, they just left it as an "active" case.
Like this county, my county defined a new criteria: if they are unable to contact the patient, after some interval they remove him/her from the "active" list. So, a lot of cases dropped off the active list. The cases were real (as it came from health care providers and the PCR test). They just lingered too long on the "active" list.
This is actually very good news. If the number of active cases in Collin county was really under 100 (and the people they can't contact have really recovered), it means the virus has been nearly eliminated. The number of active cases have ticked up to 528 since then:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/
(see yesterday's totals)
But, Collin County has over 1M people. Compared to neighboring Dallas County (which has 19,185 cases and a population of 2.6M), that's an order of magnitude difference in the rate of active cases to population.
The source of this is reclassification of cases with an unknown outcome. My county did the same thing about a month ago, but the change wasn't as drastic.
I don't know if all Texas county health departments are doing the same, but this county and mine compile reports of confirmed COVID-19 tests from local healthcare providers. It has to be the nose-swap/PCR test, not the antibody test. These are Texas guidelines: any unconfirmed (by swab/PCR) case is only considered "probable".
Once a confirmed case is reported to the county health department, they follow up to attempt to determine the source of the infection (recent foreign travel, contact with a known case, etc.) Then, they follow up on some interval (daily? weekly?) to determine if the patient has recovered. Texas also has criteria for "recovered": either a negative PCR test or 10 days without symptoms. One specific factor: no fever without medication that reduces a fever.
The problem that arose in my county (and in this one): they were no longer able to contact some patients. The reasons haven't been explained: did they move? Did they just stop answering the phone? But without talking to the patient, they weren't able to confirm recovery. So, they just left it as an "active" case.
Like this county, they defined a new criteria: if they are unable to contact the patient, after some interval they remove him/her from the "active" list. So, a lot of cases dropped off the active list. The cases were real (as it came from health care providers and the PCR test). They just lingered too long on the "active" list.
This is actually very good news. If the number of active cases in Collin county are really under 100 (and the people they can't contact have really recovered), it means the virus has been nearly eliminated. The number of active cases have ticked up to 528 since then:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/
(see yesterday's totals)
But, Collin County has over 1M people. Compared to neighboring Dallas County (which has 19,185 cases and a population of 2.6M), that's an order of magnitude difference in the rate.