Texan Crosses 300K Coronavirus Cases, 174 New Deaths

Tony Cantu
Updated ·4 min read

AUSTIN, TX — Texas on Friday achieved membership into rarefied, yet undesired ranks, joining California, Florida and New York among states reaching the 300,000 mark in terms of reported cases of the coronavirus. In addition, 174 more deaths from the respiratory illness were reported in the Lone Star State over the past 24 hours.

The total number of coronavirus cases reached 307,572 after 10,256 new cases of coronavirus were positively identified from the previous day, according to a Texas Department of State Health Services statistical dashboard. In that increase, state health officials noted around 5,000 cases reported by the San Antonio Metro Health District were included from a laboratory reporting backlog.

Deaths are also on the rise, with the historical fatality count now at 3,735. There are 141,646 active cases of the respiratory illness across Texas, according to the dashboard.

Permutations to the rising numbers put the increasingly alarming situation into further perspective: Friday was the third straight day for triple-digit death counts, and the fourth day in a row with illness count records consecutively broken.

Don't miss the latest coronavirus updates from health and government officials in the Austin area. Sign up for Patch news alerts and newsletters for what you need to know daily.

Another foreboding sign of continued surges in illness rates, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending 14 refrigerated trucks to Texas as makeshift morgues given increased body counts in some cities. Funeral homes across the state also are overwhelmed as evidenced by growing stockpiles of body bags, as CNBC reported. “The directors I’ve talked to in the last week are at capacity or over capacity, thus the reason they had to bring in the trailers,” Gene Allen, president of the Texas Funeral Directors Association, told the network.

As of Friday, the counties with the highest concentration of illness are:

  • Harris: 51,969 cases.

  • Dallas: 37,996 cases.

  • Bexar: 23,180 cases.

  • Tarrant: 20,433 cases.

  • Travis: 16,983 cases.

  • El Paso: 10,843 cases.

  • Hidalgo: 9,244 cases.

  • Nueces: 7,861 cases.

  • Galveston: 6,627 cases.

  • Fort Bend: 5,371 cases.

  • Cameron: 5,240 cases.

  • Collin: 5,079 cases.

  • Denton: 4,605 cases.

  • Montgomery: 4,501 cases.

  • Williamson: 4,420 cases.

These were the case numbers on Thursday:

  • Harris: 50,370 cases.

  • Dallas: 36,969 cases.

  • Tarrant: 19,871 cases.

  • Bexar: 17,912 cases.

  • Travis: 16,570 cases.

  • El Paso: 10,638 cases.

  • Hidalgo: 8,593 cases.

  • Nueces: 7,532 cases.

  • Galveston: 6,452 cases.

  • Fort Bend: 5,284 cases.

  • Collin: 4,934 cases.

  • Cameron County: 4,905 cases.

  • Denton: 4,467 cases.

  • Williamson: 4,327 cases.

And on Wednesday:

The illness count as of Wednesday among the top counties looked like this:

  • Harris: 49,027 cases.

  • Dallas: 35,914 cases.

  • Tarrant: 19,014 cases.

  • Bexar: 17,458 cases.

  • Travis: 15,998 cases.

  • El Paso: 10,298 cases.

  • Hidalgo: 8,197 cases.

  • Nueces: 7,032 cases.

  • Galveston: 6,307 cases.

  • Fort Bend: 5,211 cases.

  • Collin: 4,800 cases.

  • Cameron: 4,590 cases.

  • Denton: 4,316 cases.

  • Williamson: 4,153 cases.

The state has seen an exponential rise in coronavirus cases since Abbott launched an aggressive economic reopening on May 1, becoming the second governor in the nation after Georgia to try restarting a pandemic-stalled economy as other states waited for illness trends to flatten. In announcing the reopening in late April, Abbott assured the multi-phase initiative was being informed by insight offered by "doctors and data," as he often put it during news conferences.

Abbott has taken several steps recently as he now tries to stem the growing tide of illness. Among those measures was his reordering bars to close up again. For the second time since the onset of illness, he also banned all elective surgeries and medical procedures to ensure hospital space for an anticipated influx of coronavirus patients. Abbott also paused his own economic expansion, which amounted not to more closures but a halt in allowing already-opened businesses to operate at 100 percent capacity.

Related stories:

Texas Crosses 250K Mark In Coronavirus Cases, 99 New DeathsTexas Issues Back-To-School Guidance Amid CoronavirusTexas Achieves Grim Record With 129 Coronavirus Deaths In 1 DayTexas Reports Deadliest Coronavirus Day With 110 New DeathsCoronavirus-Fighting Federal Resources Headed For HoustonTexas Coronavirus Count Exceeds 264K, 43 New DeathsTexas Expands Coronavirus Testing Sites In Dallas, Houston

In a dramatic development, Abbott also recently mandated the wearing of protective face coverings across the state to help blunt the spread of illness — a departure for him after initially extolling the virtues of "personal responsibility" in making mask usage optional. Still, he issued an executive order waiving the requirement for those attending worship services he deemed "essential services" not subject to the most rigid safeguards in protecting constitutional religious rights, Abbott has suggested in the past.

This article originally appeared on the Austin Patch