Hundreds more ‘delayed’ virus cases appear in El Paso as new deaths now reported daily for nearly a month

EL PASO, Texas -- For a second straight day and the third time in under a week, local health leaders reported significant numbers of delayed positive test results, leading to questions about whether El Pasons have had an accurate picture of the extent of the coronavirus in the their community over the past couple of months.

The El Paso Department of Public Health on Sunday announced one new virus death and 57 new virus cases, along with 214 delayed cases - some dating as far back as eight weeks. Over the past week, the DPH has now announced a total of 895 delayed positive test results.

The latest virus death, a man in his 90s with underlying health conditions, brought the total number of pandemic deaths to 358. There have been new deaths reported every day since July 19, nearly a month. Also, 117 potential additional Covid-19 deaths were listed as currently under investigation, which was up from 108 a day prior.

Meantime, the cumulative case count on Sunday (including the hundreds of delayed cases) reached 18,350, with 13,443 being recovered and 4,549 currently active. This is yet again a record high for active infections in the community since the virus outbreak began back in March.

One outspoken critic, longtime journalist and El Paso Matters CEO Bob Moore, said the delayed testing data means the health department has "under-reported the impact of a pandemic for several weeks." He called it a "dangerous" situation because El Pasoans have made "potential life and death decisions" on the basis of flawed data.

On Sunday, El Paso's Emergency Management Coordinator Jorge Rodriguez placed the blame for the delayed numbers squarely on private labs which he said have been negligent in supplying the data.

"The City of El Paso cannot report out on results it has not received and is not aware of; therefore, we report and adjust the data as we receive the results. We are working tirelessly with the state so they can hold labs accountable and improving state processes for timely reports to the DPH," he said in a statement released Sunday morning.

Rodriguez, who is an assistant fire chief and led the city's disaster management efforts during the 2019 immigrant influx crisis and the mass shooting response, is heading up El Paso's testing and reporting efforts. The health department currently lacks both a permanent director and a lead epidemiologist. City officials maintain the vacant health positions have had no detrimental impact on testing efforts. There already is one epidemiologist and the city is hiring a second one, while interim health director Angela Mora has more than 35 years of experience, according to city manager Tommy Gonzalez.

In other data reported Sunday, current hospitalizations in El Paso due to the virus remained unchanged at 161. However, the number of ICU patients rose to 59 (up by three), while those on ventilators also grew to 35 (up by two).

For a complete look at El Paso's Covid-19 data provided by the health department, click here.