Texas Tops 200K Coronavirus Cases

AUSTIN, TX — Texas reached a grim milestone as it grapples with rising rates of the coronavirus, reaching the 200,000 mark on Monday. Additionally, 18 more people died o the illness in bringing the historical death count to 2,655.

The official historical count of coronavirus cases now stands at 200,557.

The death toll represents an increase of nearly 74 percent from the 1,527 cases reported on Memorial Day — a date yielding a guidepost of exponential spikes in cases since Gov. Greg Abbott launched an aggressive economic reopening that began on May 1, 30 days before the holiday.

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The 200,000 mark comes a mere 17 days after the state reached 100,000 cases. Given the soaring rates of illness, Abbott in recent days has taken steps to stem the tide — including mandating the wearing of face coverings in a departure from his previously rigid stance resisting the move in favor of voluntary compliance.

All told, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported 5,318 new cases of the respiratory illness for which there is no vaccine. Moreover, state health officials Monday on their statistical dashboard tallied 8,698 COVID-19 hospitalizations — a record high for the eighth straight day. Health officials also input the rolling seven-day average of positive tests on the dashboard, recording it at 13.5 percent — well above the 10 percent mark that Abbott previously said would represent cause for alarm.

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The 5,318 new cases reported Monday fall well short of the record of 8,258 recorded on Saturday, July 4 — the second record-setting illness spike in a week's time that also saw 33 more deaths. But given the just-passed holiday, Texas may be bracing for another big hit if post-holiday illness spikes yield any hint of what's to come.

Big spikes on Memorial Day prompted Abbott to order bars along with tubing and rafting operations to close again and put the brakes on his own, multi-phased economic reopening, which amounted to allowing already-opened businesses to operate at full occupancy.

The day before Abbott issued an executive order that mandated mask-wearing, he banned elective surgeries and medical procedures to make hospital space available for a potential influx of new coronavirus patients. He also granted municipalities greater authority in limiting the size of crowds.

"Wearing a face covering in public is proven to be one of the most effective ways we have to slow the spread of COVID-19," Abbott said in a July 2 prepared statement as he issued the mask-wearing requirement. "We have the ability to keep businesses open and move our economy forward so that Texans can continue to earn a paycheck, but it requires each of us to do our part to protect one another—and that means wearing a face covering in public spaces."

Many observers have cast Texas as something of a cautionary tale given its early reopening amid an illness pandemic. Abbott was the second governor to attempt and economic jump-start — one week after Georgia launched similar efforts — in a process he insisted would be guided by "doctors and data."

The rate of illness in Texas has grown exponentially ever since.

That reality of higher illness rates triggered a Twitter spat between Abbott and Eric Holder, the former attorney general under President Barack Obama. The latter tweeted a recent synopsis of his op/ed piece in the Washington Post: "Why did Governors in Arizona, Texas and Florida delay closing down, rush to reopen & politicize mask use? Idiocy & political gutlessness. Combined with Trump ineptitude this has led to unnecessary suffering that will only get worse over the next few weeks."

In response, Abbott parsed the numbers for his rebuttal comprising a series of questions: "Eric, why is Texas tied for the lowest death rate of the 27 most affected states? Why have more Texans recovered from COVID than any other state and twice the number of New Yorkers? Why is California spiking more than Texas even though it shut down harder and longer than Texas?"

According to the state dashboard, the counties reporting the highest level of coronavirus cases are:

• Harris: 35,597 cases, 23,450 active.
• Dallas: 25,840 cases, 9,389 active.
• Bexar: 14,751 cases, 8,665 active.
• Tarrant: 14,008 cases, 7,572 active.
• Travis: 11,679 cases, 2,535 active.
• El Paso: 7,461 cases, 2,272 active.
• Hidalgo: 5,345 cases, 2,906 active.
• Fort Bend: 4,120 cases, 2700 active.
• Galveston: 3,990 cases, 2,893 active.
• Nueces: 3,796 cases, 3,151 active.
• Collin: 3,521 cases, 681 active.

Just outside Austin, active cases of illness in Williamson County were the 14th hightest in the state, with 1,455. County health officials there reported three more deaths on Monday, that of two men in their 60s and 70s and a woman in her 70s.