Virus hospitalizations double as Texas surpasses 200,000 cases
AUSTIN, Texas — Hospitalizations across Texas have more than doubled in the last two weeks, rising to 8,698 people in hospitals on Monday.
Texas also reported 5,318 new cases Monday, after a record high of 8,258 on Saturday. And the Lone Star state reported 18 additional deaths Monday, bringing the totals to 2,655 reported deaths and 200,557 confirmed cases.
Local officials across Texas say their hospitals are becoming increasingly stretched and are in danger of becoming overrun as cases of the coronavirus surge.
In El Paso, over 200 new virus cases were reported for the fifth day in a row on Monday, as virus hospitalization hit another all-time high at 218. Roughly a third, or 70 of those patients, were in the ICU.
Along the Texas-Mexico border, Starr County Judge Eloy Vera said over the weekend that two severely ill patients were flown hundreds of miles north to Dallas and San Antonio because hospitals in the Rio Grande Valley were at capacity.
Texas surged past 8,000 statewide hospitalizations for the first time over the Fourth of July weekend — a more than quadruple increase in the past month. State health officials reported Monday that more than 12,000 beds remained available throughout Texas but the numbers differ locally.
Austin Mayor Steve Adler said hospitals in the Texas capital are at risk of becoming “overwhelmed” in the next week to 10 days unless the trajectory changes. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg says hospitals in the nation’s seventh-largest city are approaching capacity, and in Houston, officials say hospitals have already exceeded base capacity in intensive care units.
