The outbreak in Texas

This week’s COVID-19 digest

Last week marked a drastic improvement in hospitalizations across the state, as well as fewer new cases and the lowest positivity rate since Thanksgiving. Texas also hit a hopeful milestone: more Texans have received at least one dose of the vaccine than have had COVID-19.

But deaths remained high, with 1,968 reported last week — a 5 percent increase. Bexar County added 172 new deaths, making it the third-highest week for new deaths in the county.

The state recorded 77,090 new cases this week — about 6,000 of which were in Bexar County — the fewest number of new cases since Thanksgiving.

Hospitalizations are the lowest they’ve been since November.

Only four of the state’s 22 Trauma Service Areas are reporting that COVID-19 hospitalizations make up more than 15 percent of total hospital capacity, the threshold that signifies “high hospitalizations.”

The positive test rate is now at 11.62 percent, down from a high of 21 percent on Jan. 3.

More than 2.8 million people (about 12 percent of Texans age 16 and older) have received a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. More than 1 million Texans are fully vaccinated. In Bexar County, about 186,000 people, or 12 percent of the population aged 16 and older, have had at least the first dose of the vaccine.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff wrote a letter Friday asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to establish a mass vaccination site in the San Antonio region. The city’s vaccination site at the Alamodome hasn’t received any new doses in nearly three weeks.