Texas Struggling to Keep Up With Covid-19 Tallies as Prisons Lag

(Bloomberg) -- Texas is struggling to track a surge in Covid-19 cases as hospitalizations accelerate and the reserve of intensive-case beds shrinks in the state’s biggest cities.

Just hours after Governor Greg Abbott reported a record 2,622 new cases on Tuesday, health officials revised that to add more than 1,400, citing a data dump by two prisons. The addendum lifted the daily increase to 4.6%, the steepest 24-hour advance in more than eight weeks.

Prison cases have bedeviled Abbott’s Covid-19 recordkeepers. In a media briefing Tuesday, the governor blamed a prior data release from correctional facilities for more than 20% of a June 10 surge that set an earlier record. But Abbott made no mention of the impending influx of prison cases that followed his briefing.

“More important than the numbers you may hear about on daily basis are reasons behind those numbers,” Abbott said Tuesday. “If you look behind that number and the reason there was such a high number that day, it provides a level of context.”

Covid-19 hospitalizations, meanwhile, swelled by 11% in Texas to 2,793, the biggest 24-hour increase since June 4, state health department figures showed on Wednesday. Since the end of May, hospitalizations have climbed 66%.

The wave of new cases and hospitalizations prompted Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and the leaders of eight other major Lone Star cities to implore the governor to give local officials the power to compel residents to wear masks.

So far, Abbott has resisted such appeals and urged municipal and county leaders to use other tools such as the threat of license suspensions to encourage masks and social distancing.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.