Like El Paso, Texas now sees virus hospitalization rates soaring
AUSTIN, TEXAS — New cases of the coronavirus continue to soar in Texas, state health officials said Tuesday, as the number of people in the state hospitalized because of the virus has spiked at levels not seen in two months.
Health officials reported 4,588 Covid-19 patients in Texas hospitals for treatment Tuesday, the most since late August. At least 565 of those patients were in El Paso hospitals, which is the largest amount since the pandemic started and accounts for roughly 33% of all El Paso hospitalizations.
Tuesday also saw the addition of 4,856 newly confirmed cases of Covid-19, more than 400 more than the 4,422 cases on Monday. The addition of 174 unreported cases from previous days pushed the increase to 5,032, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
The latest cases pushed the total of Texas cases for the pandemic in its eighth month to 833,557, of which 83,973 are currently active. Those active cases on Tuesday were more than 1,000 more than Monday. It's also a tally up by almost a third since 64,431 active cases were reported a month ago.
In El Paso, there were 666 new cases reported Tuesday. The county's infections have risen nearly 500% over the past two weeks.
However, the true number of cases in Texas is likely higher though because many people haven’t been tested and studies suggest people can be infected and not feel sick.
The addition of 65 fatalities Tuesday brought the Texas pandemic death toll to 17,087. Three of those latest deaths happened in El Paso, to raise the local death count to 560.
