CORYELL COUNTY, Texas — Editor's Note: The video above is about a lag in case reporting by the Texas Department of State Health Services and its impact on Coryell County virus data.
The City of Copperas Cove released updated coronavirus case numbers Feb. 4 after receiving an update from the Texas Department of State Health Services regarding cases that were not previously recorded, the city said in a press release.
With the updated case count provided by the city, Copperas Cove has had a total of 2,473 cases as of Feb. 4. From that number, 616 cases remain active, while 1,847 have recovered and 10 people have died.
The total case count and active cases are significantly higher compared to the city's last update, published Jan. 25. Just 10 days ago, the city reported a total of 1,620 cases. That number has now jumped up by more than 850 cases with new TDSHS data, revealing that there were more cases in the city than previously accounted for. At that time, the city reported 424 active cases, which has now jumped to more than 600 with updated data.
Copperas Cove's jump in cases comes as Coryell County said last week that the state health department contacted county leaders about cases being under-reported. In a press release sent out by Coryell County Judge Roger Miller last week, he said that about 2,480 cases had not been reported in data provided by the health department, but were going to be added - causing the county's case numbers to spike.
"Had we been aware of just how serious our increase of infection rate was, we might have been able to take steps to lessen that rate," Miller previously said. "Someone could have, should have, informed us. But that wasn't the case. We were left clueless and in the dark. Ultimately, we are being left to explain a situation for which we have no real explanation."
Most of those cases came in the months of December 2020 and January 2021.
