Texas Reports 9,507 New Coronavirus Cases, 173 New Deaths

Tony Cantu
·4 min read

AUSTIN, TX — Texas health officials reported 9,507 new cases of the coronavirus and 173 additional deaths on Thursday. Historically, the state has now recorded 361,125 cases of the respiratory illness for which no vaccine exists along with 4,521 fatalities.

The figures provided by Texas Department of State Health Services come one day after the state recorded the most deaths in a single day at 197 — 24 more than the number recorded on Thursday. The latest deaths are one shy of the 174 reported last Friday, the old record before the Wednesday totals.

Thursday's reported illness cases marks the 13th day this month that more than 9,000 cases have been reported in a single day.

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According to the dashboard, there are 152,778 active cases of the illness, with some 203,826 patients recovering since contracting the respiratory virus. But lately, recovery data has come into question as detailed in a disclaimer that is now a permanent dashboard fixture: "This number is an estimate based on several assumptions related to hospitalization rates and recovery times, which were informed by data available to date," health officials wrote. "These assumptions are subject to change as we learn more about COVID-19. The estimated number does not include data from any cases reported prior to 3/24/2020."

Health officials across the state have taken to include similar disclaimers on their dashboards, including those in Williamson County — the region with the state's 17th highest rate of illness and 10th greatest death count. "Recoveries are not a reportable condition to Public Health, therefore, recovery data are not absolute and are to be used for estimating purposes only," health officials wrote. "No trends or other inferences should be drawn from these data. The numbers posted represent a point in time snapshot and may fluctuate throughout the day. Deaths and recovered are included in the total positive cases."

The rough coronavirus calculus for historical data was further modified by a pair of key events, health officials wrote in another small-print disclaimer affixed to the dashboard. "The total reported cases for June 16 include 2,622 new cases and an additional 1,476 cases that were previously diagnosed among Texas Department of Criminal Justice inmates," officials wrote. Officials added: "Prior to July 14, San Antonio Metro Health District (SAMHD) was not fully separating probable from confirmed case counts. On July 15, DSHS updated Bexar County and statewide totals to remove 3,484 probable cases."

Texas has experienced surging levels of illness since Gov. Greg Abbott launched an aggressive reopening of the state's coronavirus-stalled economy that began May 1 — a multi-phased process he assured was being guided by "doctors and data," as he frequently said. The state became the second in trying to jump-start its economy one week after Georgia launched a similar effort.

Since that time, Texas has emerged as something of a cautionary tale on the perils of having reopened too soon. Abbott has been forced to take action in trying to stem the ensuing tide of illness: Ordering bars to shut down again, issuing a ban on elective surgeries and medical procedures for the second time to accommodate a potential influx of coronavirus patients and mandating the wearing of protective face coverings in contrast to his erstwhile staunchly held ideological stance of personal choice in donning masks.

But even as he accepted the value of wearing masks, Abbott exempted those attending religious services to protect their religious freedoms, as he stated at the time.

And yet, despite such measures, the numbers keep going up. While signs of a plateau in illness rates has been preliminarily detected, deaths from the illness continue to mount. According to the state dashboard, the ten counties with the greatest number of fatalities are:

  • Harris: 575 deaths.

  • Dallas: 567 deaths.

  • Hidalgo: 400 deaths.

  • Tarrant: 310 deaths.

  • Bexar: 283 deaths.

  • Travis: 222 deaths.

  • El Paso: 211 deaths.

  • Cameron: 137 cases.

  • Nueces: 116 cases.

  • Williamson: 89 cases.

Historically, the counties with the highest illness concentration are:

  • Harris: 59,924 cases.

  • Dallas: 43,439 cases.

  • Bexar: 28,776 cases.

  • Tarrant: 23,536 cases.

  • Travis: 18,696 cases.

  • Hidalgo: 13,776 cases.

  • El Paso: 12,501 cases.

  • Nueces: 9,607 cases.

  • Galveston: 7,663 cases.

  • Cameron: 6,854 cases.

  • Fort Bend: 6,239 cases.

  • Denton: 5,544 cases.

  • Montgomery: 5,249 cases.

  • Brazoria: 5,117 cases.

  • Williamson: 5,071 cases.

  • Lubbock: 4,769 cases.

  • Jefferson: 4,697 cases.

  • Webb: 4,472 cases.

  • Hays: 4,045 cases.

  • McLennan: 3,688 cases.

This article originally appeared on the Austin Patch