Coronavirus: Texas Illness Count Crosses 148K Mark

AUSTIN, TX — The number of cases of the coronavirus across Texas grew by 5,352 on Sunday, raising the historical illness count to 148,723. Another 27 patients died of the respiratory illness in the same 24-hour period, bringing the fatality count so far to 2,393.

The updated data are found on a statistical dashboard maintained by the Texas Department of State Health Services. The number of active coronavirus cases across Texas stood at 66,356 on Sunday, an increase of 3,599 open cases from the 62,757 reported on Saturday.

The 5,352-case increase reported on Sunday comes one day after 5,747 new illness cases were added to the overall count on Saturday, when 42 more people died from respiratory illness for which there is no vaccine.

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According to the state dashboard, the greatest concentration of illness in Texas have emerged in the following counties:

• Harris County: 29,163 cases, including 17,877 active.
• Dallas County: 19,595 cases, 6289 active.
• Tarrant County: 11,083 cases, 5,472 active.
• Bexar County: 9,652 cases, 5,533 active.
• Travis County: 7,825 cases, 1,429 active.
• El Paso County: 5,614 cases, 1,549 active.
• Fort Bend County: 3,716 cases, 2,295 active.
• Hidalgo County: 2,892 cases, 1,918 active.
• Potter County: 2,858 cases, 923 active.
• Galveston County: 2,821 cases, 1,814 active.
• Collin County: 2,671 cases, 413 active.
• Denton County: 2,630 cases, 1,424 active.

Amid soaring illness rates across Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott expressed regret over having allowed bars to reopen amid a pandemic. "If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would have been to slow down the opening of bars, now seeing in the aftermath of how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting," Abbott said during an evening interview with KVIA in El Paso, Texas, as reported by Texas Tribune.

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Abbott added the "bar setting, in reality, just doesn't work with a pandemic," noting people "go to bars to get close and to drink and to socialize, and that's the kind of thing that stokes the spread of the coronavirus." He reiterated his lament to WFAA in Dallas, as the Tribune reported, saying the tracing of new illness to bar environments is, in retrospect, an "easy thing to pinpoint."

At his direction, Texas became the second state to reopen its state economy — one week after Georgia — in a multi-phased schedule that began May 1 he insisted was being guided by "doctors and data." The illness scourge has grown in earnest since Memorial Day as the number of coronavirus cases have more than doubled, as the Austin American-Statesman observed. From May 25 to June 25, state health officials reported more than 75,000 COVID-19 cases, the newspaper reported. From April 25 to May 25, the report added, the number was roughly 32,000 cases.

Seeing illness rates rise exponentially ever since his reopening, Abbott on June 26 ordered bars to close again, along with tubing and rafting operations. The day before that, he put a pause to his reopening plan — which amounted at that point to allowing already-open businesses to serve the public at full capacity — and prohibited elective surgeries and procedures to make hospital space available to a potential influx of new coronavirus patients.