For nearly three months Texa's new COVID-19 cases hovered at between 1,000 and 2,000 each day, but now Texas' infection count has spiked in the last two weeks, with up to 6,000 new Coronavirus cases reported in a single day. The sharp rise in cases has also yielded record highs in hospital admissions - reaching at 5,913 on Monday.
If this patter continues, Houston "would become the worst affected city in the US", possibly rivaling what's happening now in Brazil, wrote Peter Hotez, director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital, on Twitter. "I cannot really see how things get better on their own."
Why the rise? Well many point to fact that the State opened back up way too soon, their lockdown lasted only a couple of weeks! Texas Governor Greg Abbott allowed his stay home order to expire on 30 April, with almost all businesses - including bars and restaurants - operating to at least 50% capacity by early June. Last week, amid the spike, the governor shut down all bars and ordered restaurants to cut down capacity from 75 to 50%.
"If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would have been to slow down the opening of bars," Mr. Abbott said to El Paso station KVIA-TV. A "bar setting, in reality, just doesn't work with a pandemic".
In certain counties, people under the age 30 make up the majority of Covid patients, Mr Abbott said at a press conference earlier this month, which "typically results from people going to the bar-type settings".
Photo: Getty
Texas Governor Greg Abbott says the coronavirus has taken a "very swift and very dangerous turn" as the state saw record case numbers over the past week. He speaks at a joint press briefing with Vice President Mike Pence in Dallas.