Texas Achieves Grim Record With 129 Coronavirus Deaths In 1 Day

AUSTIN, TX — Texas health officials reported 129 new deaths from the coronavirus on Thursday, an all-time high for fatalities in a single day.

The new fatalities break a previous record of 110 deaths in a single day that was just reached on Wednesday. The number of new cases statewide over the past 24 hours was 10,291 — 500 less than the number reported the previous day. The data are found on a statistical dashboard maintained by the Texas Department of State Health Services.

As bad as the situation appears now, the Centers for Diseae Control and Prevention predict matters are poised to get worse.

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"As of July 13, forecasts suggest 24 states and territories are likely to report more #COVID19 deaths in the next 4 weeks than in the previous 4 weeks," CDC officials wrote. "Nationally, between 150,000 and 170,000 total deaths are expected by Aug. 8."

A foreboding barometer reflecting the worsening situation can be seen in rising orders for refrigerated trucks at some Texas cities as makeshift storage for bodies in light of dwindling morgue space. Officials in San Antonio and Nueces County have requested the makeshift storage units amid illness surges, as CBS News reported.

San Antonio is in Bexar County — the area with the fourth-highest illness concentrations after Harris, Dallas and Tarrant, respectively — where some 18,000 coronavirus cases have been reported since COVID-19 began to sweep across the city. Nueces County, where the city of Corpus Christi is located, has seen 6,427 confirmed cases of the virus infection. Dr. Adel Shaker told the Texas Tribune of his request late last week for a refrigerated trailer to be used as makeshift morgue.

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.

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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.

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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.

The Texas counties with the highest levels of infections as of Thursday are:

• 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.

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.