8,000 New Harris County COVID-19 Cases

"Texas saw its highest number of daily new cases of coronavirus ever on the 4th of July with 8,268 new cases in one day, according to Texas Health and Human Services." [FOX 26].

Harris County and southeast Texas hospitals are experience high levels of new COVID-19 cases, bringing the ICU to 97% capacity. They are working to expand their intensive care units, according to the CEO of SouthEast Texas Regional Advisory Council, Darrell Pile, as cited by FOX 26 of Houston.

Pile reports that we are "63 ICU beds below our normal maximum capacity." He also notes that "it's important to point out that that is a number that we created--the capacity number--because now hopitals are adding capacity in order to handle more patients. We're not at a point where patients are not going to receive care from our hospitals. The hospitals have geared up to provide the care."

The Texas Medical Center's new data shows that Houston and surrounding county hospitals show more than "500 ICU beds are currently occupied by COVID-19 patients and more than 3,000 beds are not currently in use." The Houston Methodist executive vice president, Roberta Schwartz, reports that they are handling the situation but that "there will come a point in a number of weeks where if we do not do the things that we know work, then this will grow beyond the capacity that our hospitals can currently handle."

Additional staff have been hired, surgeries are delayed, and about 43% of all patients are COVID-19 patients in Harris County, and the 25 county region of Southeast Texas [Pile as cited by FOX 26].

Pile believes that the hospitals will see a large shift in the ratio following the July 4th Holiday weekend. Residents are still urged to Stay Home, Work Safe as advised by Judge Lina Hidalgo, but the past weekend has shown that Texas residents do not plan to halt their summer activities despite the rapid rise of cases.

More info on the COVID-19 developments are here: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/index.html