COVID death count at 54

Three new deaths in Bandera County were attributed to COVID-19, bringing the death count since the start of the pandemic to 54, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) as of Monday morning.

DSHS listed 35 active COVId-19 in Bandera County as of Monday. That active count case has been steadily declining the last two weeks.

Statewide, the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths continued to drop, with 28,840 new cases and 937 deaths reported last week by the Coronavirus Resource Center at John Hopkins University. Last week marked the first time weekly COVID-19 deaths were under 1,000 since summer. In other COVID-related news, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages five to 11.

The FDA said immune responses in children in that age range were comparable to those of persons 16 to 25 years old. More than a million doses targeting children in that age group are being sent to providers in nearly half of the state’s counties, according to DSHS.

As of Sunday, 15.44 million Texans have been fully vaccinated, 53 percent of the state’s population, according to the CDC.

In the United States, 192,586,927 people are fully vaccinated, accounting for 58 percent of the country’s population.

Countrywide, 221,760,691 people have received at least one dose. That number accounts for 66.8 percent of the country’s eligible population.