Hospitalizations spiking here after holiday, business reopenings.

Upturn in cases also accelerates following Memorial Day and business reopenings

Three weeks after it stood out as the urban exception to the state’s spiking COVID-19 crisis, the Houston region has begun seeing a significant increase in cases and hospitalizations.

The upturn, which began two weeks ago and accelerated this week, comes a month after Gov. Greg Abbott began allowing businesses to reopen and a week and a half after the Memorial Day weekend, both of which health officials think led people to let their guard down and come into closer contact with others. The hike followed a roughly monthlong plateau the area had settled into.

“This is a trend we’re definitely keeping an eye on,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. “If the numbers keep up in this direction, we could be headed to a place where we run out of hospital space, which obviously would be a problem.”

COVID-19 patients have occupied hospital intensive-care units in the nine-county Houston area at higher levels the first three days in June than they did on any single day in May, according to date compiled by the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council, a state group that coordinates the region’s emergency response to disasters. In Harris County, hospital admissions have increased at statistically significant levels the past two weeks.

Case counts of COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, have also jumped. The rolling average in the Houston region rose from 267 on May 22 to 358 on June 4. Harris County’s dropped as low as 194 on May 31, only to come in at 262 Wednesday.

Houston took bows for its relatively fewer number of cases the first three weeks in May, attributed by officials to stay-athome orders and decisive actions such as shutting down the rodeo. The area’s 100 to 200 cases a day contrasted with nearly 250 a day in mid-May in just Dallas County, the then epicenter of spiking numbers in the state.

The Texas numbers are still high. On Friday, the state’s sevenday average of new cases was 1,729, the most since the state began publishing data on hospitalizations. It has been increasing since May 27.

Dr. Marc Boom, president of Houston Methodist, called the recent increase “not unexpected but nonetheless concerning.” He said it’s “manageable still, but it’s certainly got our attention.”

The Texas Medical Center, which publishes daily statistics from hospitals in the Houston re

gion, warned on Thursday that COVID-19 cases are growing quickly enough that they could overwhelm the amount of intensive care beds available in two weeks — though on Friday the center updated that estimate to five weeks and listed the possibility as a “moderate concern.”

Peter Hotez, an infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine, also suggested the recent increase may not bode well, given some of the models not only “predicted this rise, but then projected the increase will accelerate even further as we progress through the summer.” He said the trajectory shows the urgent need to expanding COVID-19 testing and contact tracing.

Several experts attributed the Houston-area surge to eased restrictions on stay-at-home orders with businesses reopening and people gathering on Memorial Day. They said those factors explain both the steady uptick that began two weeks ago and the bigger increase this week.

Abbott began lifting restrictions on May 1, allowing people to again leave their homes and select businesses to open at reduced capacity. He expanded the businesses and capacities in two subsequent phases, the latest Wednesday.

Despite public health admonitions reminding people of the need to continue practicing social distancing, many didn’t seem to get the message, said public health officials.

“I am afraid the public interprets lifting ‘government-mandated shelter in place’ and closure of non-essential business that the pandemic is over and community and individual mitigation measures are no longer necessary,” said Gerald Parker, director of the pandemic and biosecurity policy program at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government Service. “But the virus is still in our communities and can hit the most vulnerable hard.”

Parker, who said “time will tell whether or not the increase in cases becomes dangerous,” urged people to still wear masks, limit numbers in gatherings and maintain six feet of separation from others.

Vivian Ho, a Rice University health economist, said she expected an increase in cases as Houston opened up, but hoped hospitalizations wouldn’t rise so quickly because older people would continue to shelter in place. “I see the elderly being much more cautious,” she said, “but it doesn’t seem to be helping. Asymptomatic people can easily bring the virus home to a vulnerable family member.”

Hidalgo said she has been concerned by in-person graduations, where “of course kids are going to hug,” because they “haven’t seen each other in three months and may not see each other again until their five-year reunions; reports of people going to clubs again; and bars with “people sitting incredibly close together.” She said “a couple hundred people here and a couple hundred there is “the same as having a multi-thousand person gathering.”

Hidalgo cited statistics showing COVID-19 admissions at Harris County hospitals are increasing by 19.3 patients a day the last five days, 16.6 the last seven days and 2.2 patients the last 14 days. She said the COVID-19 intensive care occupancy rate — 14.6 percent of all beds, just below the 15 percent Abbott laid out as a ceiling — is “a matter of concern.”

The growing numbers are evident at Methodist and Memorial Hermann, the medical center hospital systems treating the most COVID-19 patients. Methodist COVID-19 volumes have gone from under 100 from May 8 through May 29 to 139 Friday; Memorial Hermann’s from 155 May 25 to 201 Thursday.

Adding to the concerns are a possible looming cases as a result of area protests over the death of former Houston resident George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

“We’re all very concerned about that,” said Dr. Luis Ostrosky, an infectious disease specialist at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth. “A lot of people in close proximity, a lot of shouting, a lot of potential opportunities for transmission. We’ll be watching very carefully.”

Hotez suggested it would be wise for those who attended the protest, particularly those with existing serious conditions, to get tested for the virus.