WilCo Gets 182 More Coronavirus Cases, Death Count Exceeds 100

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TX — Another 182 new cases of the coronavirus were reported in Williamson County on Friday, growing the historical case count to 7,330. Deaths from the respiratory illness are now in the triple digits, with 102 fatalities reported.

The reported number of deaths has shifted widely in the last few days as county officials adjust to a new calculation method from state health officials relying on death certificates rather than local reports from health authorities. While now uniform with state methods, the county count contingent on death certificates can take up to three weeks to be processed.

Williamson County officials once provided separate news releases detailing deaths, including the age range and gender of victims succumbing to the illness. Attendant to such notices, Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell invariably offered words of comfort and condolences to victims' families while dispensing advice on how to stay safe.

Such practices ended on Aug. 1, and county health officials directed residents to parse the data for themselves by visiting the Williamson County and Cities Health District statistical dashboard for insights, such as Round Rock having the most confirmed cases so far with 2,250 with Georgetown following with 1,223 cases.

According to the dashboard, there have been about 5,896 estimated recoveries of the respiratory illness as of Friday. But even while reporting the metric, county health officials offer a disclaimer that is now something of a fixture on the portal:

"Recoveries are not a reportable condition to Public Health, therefore, recovery data are not absolute and are to be used for estimating purposes only. No trends or other inferences should be drawn from these data. The numbers posted represent a point in time snapshot and may fluctuate throughout the day. Deaths and recovered are included in the total positive cases. Hospital capacity data are only representative of the hospitals that have reported in the last 24 hours. These data are provisional and are subject to change at any time."

The dashboard also shows there have been 50,303 tests performed in the county, and places the daily average positivity rate of 7.96 percent.

On Monday, county health officials said they added 648 additonal cases to the count the previous Saturday (Aug. 8) "...due to a lab-reporting backlog," they explained. "The majority of cases are dated back from June and July."