Coronavirus is Surging in Houston

Since Texas reopened prior to Memorial Day weekend, there have been rises of COVID-19 cases within the state, as was predicted by concerned medical professionals and policy makers. Houston's local medical system is holding strong, but it will be a delicate matter for a long while.

Up to 60,000 people were marching in protests in Downtown Houston last week, but even though that is dangerous for spreading cases, crowds were already appearing beforehand and these spikes in cases should not be attributed to the protests. Darrell Pile, head of the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council that tracks hospital admissions in Harris County, along with 8 other counties, has said there was a large increase in hospital admissions for COVID-19 in the past five days. He stated "at that time, we had 194 COVID-19 patients in our hospitals. And as of Monday of this week, it jumped to 426."

The spike, although not surprising, is of major concern, and the United Memorial Medical Center has COVID-19 beds filling up quickly. Dr. Joseph Varon, Chief of Medicine at UMMC, stated that "over the last two weeks, we have admitted more patients than over the last 10 weeks together." The tracking and testing of cases is now of utmost priority in controlling the virus, he also said. "COVID-19 is still here it's not going away. When you have mass congregations of people in the middle of a pandemic you're going to have more patients," Varon also said.

The medical system can currently handle the extra cases but Pile says the 10,000 hospital beds could be increased to 24,000. Our best chance at fighting the virus is to maintain social distancing, wear face masks, and know that when large groups gather, the virus is present too.

SOURCE: CLICK2HOUSTON