Texas Covid-19 Cases Top 1 Million in Worsening Second Wave

(Bloomberg) --

Texas’s Covid-19 caseload topped one million as the second most-populous U.S. state contends with some of the worst local outbreaks of the pandemic’s latest wave.

Texas cases reached 1,010,364, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center. The Lone Star state has surpassed California’s tally, despite having just three-fourths the population. Almost 20,000 Texans have perished from the virus and the positivity rate is 10.55, Johns Hopkins said on Wednesday.

Texas logged a record 10,865 new daily cases, breaking the old record established during the height of the state’s last widespread outbreak in July, according to state health department figures released late Tuesday. Virus patients occupy as much as 40% of hospital beds in hotspots such as El Paso and Amarillo, state figures showed.

In the Houston area, the number of virus patients requiring the most invasive care has surged 15% in the past week to 253, the highest since Sept. 9, the SouthEast Texas Regional Advisory Council said on Wednesday.

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