Virus surge visible across Texas: 'The tsunami is here'

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Urgent calls for field hospitals. Cars lined up for hours at drive-thru testing centers. Bars boarded up and grocery stores enforcing masks.

Texas today resembles the state in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Except now, the outbreak is far worse.

Records for COVID-19-related deaths and hospitalizations are set almost daily and Texas, the state that embarked on one of America’s fastest reopenings, is in retreat. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who on Friday extended a statewide disaster order first issued in March, is now telling the public to brace for what’s ahead.

“Things will get worse,” Abbott told Lubbock television station KLBK. “The worst is yet to come as we work our way through that massive increase in people testing positive.”

On Friday, Texas surpassed 10,000 hospitalized patients for the first time, capping a week of grim markers that also saw the state exceed 10,000 new cases in a single day. And it has been the deadliest week of the pandemic in Texas, with 95 new deaths reported Friday.

“Several months ago, I warned of a potential tsunami if we did not take this more seriously,” said Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez, the top official in one of the largest counties on the Texas-Mexico border. Since Monday, at least 31 people there have died due to COVID-19 — more than in Houston or San Antonio.

“The tsunami is here,” he said.

The crush of patients at border hospitals is one alarming new sight in Texas. In rural Starr County, which has one hospital and no intensive care unit, County Judge Eloy Vera said Friday that doctors were down to two ventilators and that the local health director was calling around the country looking for places to send their most severe virus patients. “There aren't any...