Little change in area virus counts
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by only four across five Northeast Texas counties from Wednesday to Thursday.
Titus County’s tally rose from 843 to 846 and Morris County’s from 49 to 50, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Bowie County held at 340 cases and Cass County at 57, according to the local emergency Joint Operations Center. Red River County’s count remained at 117, according to TDSHS.
In Southwest Arkansas, Miller County added one case to reach 233, according to the Arkansas Department of Health. Pike County’s count rose from 11 to 12, Lafayette County’s from 22 to 23, Hempstead County’s from 65 to 69, Nevada County’s from 104 to 106, Howard County’s from 106 to 115 and Sevier County’s from 758 to 769.
Caddo Parish in Northwest Louisiana added 59 cases from Wednesday to Thursday, for a total of 4,005, and Bossier Parish added 35 cases to reach 1,177, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.
Statewide, Arkansas reported 25,246 cumulative cases with 305 deaths, Louisiana reported 71,994 cases with 3,247 deaths, and Texas reported 230,346 cases with 2,918 deaths.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 3,047,671 total cases so far in the U.S., with a national death toll of 132,056.
AUSTIN — Worsening coronavirus trends in Texas again set another grim milestone Thursday as the state reported more than 100 deaths in a single day for the first time, making this the deadliest week of the pandemic in what has rapidly become one of America's virus hot zones.
In addition to 105 new deaths, Texas also reported a new high for hospitalizations for the 10th consecutive day and the rolling rate of positive tests inched closer to nearly 16% — the highest in the pandemic yet.
“I gotta tell you, I think the numbers are going to look worse as we go into next week,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott told Houston television station KRIV.
The bleak numbers, and uncertainty over when a reversal might come, has hospitals across Texas amplifying calls for more staff and scrambling to make room for new COVID-19 patients filling beds. In Weslaco on the TexasMexico border, an emergency room has already set up a medical tent outside with 20 beds, but hospital officials warned that far more are needed.
“We really needed a 1,000-bed field hospital from the federal government yesterday,” said Wesley Robinson, the assistant chief nursing officer of the South Texas Health System.
Capacity has become so stretched, Robinson said, that he estimated the region needed 25 new beds a day to meet demand.
The resurgence of the virus in Texas has put a heavy strain on border hospitals that are smaller and have less life-saving equipment than Houston or Dallas, which are also hard hit but have far more beds to offer. Nearly 60% of the roughly 1,200 medical staff that Texas health officials have deployed to stretched-thin hospitals have been sent to the Rio Grande Valley, said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Abbott, who last month banned elective medical procedures in Texas' biggest cities as cases began creeping up again, expanded those restrictions Thursday to hospitals serving more than 100 counties, including some in rural swaths of the state. Texas health officials say more than 11,000 beds remain open in Texas, although availability varies by region.
Texas reported more than 9,600 coronavirus patients in Texas hospitals on Thursday. During the dark early days of the pandemic in the U.S., New York had more than 18,000 hospitalizations at its peak.
"The State of Texas continues to implement strategies to help ensure ample supply of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients,” Abbott said in a statement.
The move to free up more beds is the latest rollback of restrictions that Abbott began lifting in May as he embarked on one of the most aggressive reopenings in America. His reversals, which have included shuttering bars again and mandating face coverings in most of Texas, have been welcomed as long overdue by Democratic leaders in big cities but have made him the target of backlash within his party.
The Texas Republican Party on Thursday sued Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner over his decision to cancel the GOP's state convention that had been set to begin next week in the city's downtown convention center. Turner, a Democrat, had previously resisted calls to cancel the convention but by Tuesday said the “public health concerns outweighed anything else.”
A judge in Houston later denied the GOP's request for an emergency injunction. The party said it would appeal directly to the Texas Supreme Court.