Texas Covid Cases Could Be on Verge
of Rocket Surge with Monday Surprise

Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside
November 30, 2020

Texas could be on the eve of another all-time coronavirus spike with a shot at cracking the 20,000 mark for the first time based on the count of new cases around the state on Monday.

The state logged 10,714 new COVID-19 infections in Texas today - the most that have ever been recorded here on a Monday when the daily totals have been relatively low as a result of lax reporting and less testing on weekends outside the biggest cities.

The number of people who were hospitalized in Texas with covid infections reached its highest point in four full months at 8,900. But hospitalizations tend to be a week or two behind the surges - and Texas could be on track as a result to surpass the current record that was set with 10,893 covid patients in hospitals here a week after the peak of the second surge in July.

The Department of State Health Services had reported 6,576 new cases on Monday one week ago before the daily Texas tally soared to a record 13,998 infections the following day en route to the highest spike yet on Wednesday at 14,648.

Texas has averaged 4,784 new covid cases on Mondays during the fall surge that's been under way here for the past six weeks. The Tuesday counts have been 99 percent higher on average than the totals the day before in the same spans of time. The daily Texas totals on Tuesdays in the past three weeks had been 116 percent higher on average than the number of cases that had been confirmed the day before.

The coronavirus appeared to be subsiding significantly on paper in Texas over the course of the Thanksgiving weekend with some of the lowest daily infection counts in the past two months. But the expected surge today suggests that the apparent decline in the past few days was just another mirage in a pandemic that's been filled with twists and turns in a state where it's been raging out of control for weeks.

The DSHS pegged the running Texas tally of virus infections at 1.17 million today when the New York Times had the cumulative number at more than 1.25 million since the disease surfaced here in early March. The NYT showed Texas on Monday with 21,900 covid fatalities while the state had the official death toll at 21,379 on the final day of November.

The Midland-Odessa is the hottest current spot in Texas outside of Lubbock as one in a handful of metros around the nation where the number of new virus cases have been increasing at the fastest rates.

El Paso and Lubbock ranked fifth and sixth nationally today in the cumulative count of coronavirus cases throughout the pandemic in major American cities with Amarillo as the 17th most infected metro in the country.

The surprisingly high count of new cases in Texas on Monday could be a harbinger for a record spike on Tuesday based on the state's history in the coronavirus contagion. The daily tally soared 113 percent on Tuesday last week after a 58 percent jump the week before that. The number of new infections that were recorded in Texas on Tuesday three weeks ago was 178 percent higher than the previous day.

Texas had 2.2 times more new coronavirus cases today than it had reported in the past six Mondays on average.