Most young Texas cases diagnosed this month

HOUSTON — Most of the 85 young children in a South Texas county who are known to have contracted the coronavirus tested positive this month amid a surge in the state, a health official said Sunday.

Nearly all of the children, most of whom are 1 year old or younger, are expected to recover on their own, Annette Rodriguez, the Corpus Christi-Nueces County public health director, told the Associated Press by phone. One of the children died, but officials are still trying to determine if COVID-19 was the cause, she said.

“There’s always that concern that you’re going to have that one baby like we did that passed away,” Rodriguez said. “How many more from this group? What percent will you lose possibly to this virus?”

The county, which is home to about 362,000 people and sits on the Gulf Coast, is one of several COVID-19 hot spots in Texas, which has been hammered by the disease in recent weeks. On Sunday, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that the Department of Defense had sent five teams of Navy doctors to four locations in southern and southwestern Texas to help hospitals where capacity has become stretched.

Texas health officials reported 7,300 new confirmed cases on Sunday and said 93 more people have died due to COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, bringing the number of reported cases to 325,030 and the number of deaths to 3,958. The state reported 10,592 individuals who were hospitalized with the virus on Sunday.