The outbreak in Texas

This week’s COVID-19 digest

As Texas readies to distribute the first batch of vaccines to healthcare workers, the state's rolling average of new cases topped 13,000 this week — the highest it has been since the start of the pandemic.

Texas added 165,113 new cases this week, largely driven by more than 140,000 backlogged antigen tests the state reported Friday dating back to Nov 1. State officials previously excluded those cases from the tally, counting them separately as “probable” positive tests.

The positive test rate in Texas fell slightly to 13.14 percent this week, down from nearly 15 percent last week. Despite the decrease, the positivity rate remained above Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's “red flag” benchmark of 10 percent. The nation reported more than 3,000 COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday alone, the highest single day total for new cases. On Friday, the United States reached 15,820,714 cases and 294,715 deaths total. One in every 10 cases was reported in Texas since the start of the pandemic. Bexar County added 7,283 new cases, down from 100% last week's spike of more than 8,000 new cases. The county recorded 43 deaths this week, up from 36 last week. Statewide, hospitalizations continued to rise, creeping closer to the all-time high of 10,893 hospitalized COVID-19 patients recorded in late July. Hospitalizations reached 9,109 statewide by Friday, a slight increase from last week.

For more data on the pandemic in Texas, visit ExpressNews.com/covidtracking.