County hits key COVID-19 limit for first time

The Trauma Service Area (TSA) which includes Henderson County hit two new milestones Tuesday.

First, hospitalizations because of COVID-19 broke 400 for the first time. The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) reported 428 COVID-19 patients in the hospital in the TSA.

Second, COVID-19 hospitalizations in the area reached 15 percent for the first time.

Gov. Greg Abbott's Executive Order GA-32, which went into effect Oct. 14, 2020, defines high hospitalizations any Trauma Service Area (TSA) that has had seven consecutive days in which the number of COVID- 19 hospitalized patients as a percentage of total hospital capacity exceeds 15 percent. After seven days at that level, any business operating at 75 percent capacity must pull back to 50 percent.

(NOTE: Texas separates the state into 22 regions called Trauma Service Areas, or TSAs, for hospital data. Henderson County's region is designated TSA-G and includes Tyler/Longview. TSA-G includes about 960,000 people.)