For the fourth day in a row, the state of Texas has set a record for the number of COVID-19 patients in the hospital.
On Thursday, the number of people in the state who were in the hospital with COVID-19 jumped to 12,268. It’s the first time the state has surpassed 12,000.
The state’s positivity rate is also on the rise. On Thursday, Texas reported molecular tests had 20.53 percent positivity. That’s up from Wednesday’s number, which was 18.74 percent.
ICU in the Texas Medical Center
Here in Houston, the Texas Medical Center is operating in ICU Phase 2. All 13,300 of their regular ICU beds in Phase 1 are full. Thirty-four percent of those beds in Phase 1 have COVID patients in them.
ICU phase 2 allocates an extra 373 beds to handle an increase in patients, regardless of their diagnoses.
There is also a Phase 3, which doctors are prepared for. That would be an additional 504 beds. But hospital officials say Phase 3 isn’t sustainable long term.
Dr. James McDeavitt, SVP and Dean of clinical affairs for Baylor College of Medicine said earlier in the pandemic that hospital staff can sustain Phase 3 for roughly 4 weeks. Anything longer would overwhelm hospital employees and affect patient care.
Hospital levels and rollbacks
When Gov. Abbott signed an executive order back in October to further reopen the state, one stipulation was that if a trauma region had seven straight days of COVID patients accounting for 15 percent or higher of hospital capacity, they would have to reduce the occupancy of indoor businesses from 75 percent to 50 percent and stop elective surgeries.
So far, two regions in our area have had to roll back. One of those regions includes Chambers, Galveston, Liberty, and Brazoria Counties. Another includes Brazos, Grimes, and Washington Counties.
The region that includes Harris, Fort Bend, and Montgomery Counties is now at five days in a row above 15 percent.
Harris County issued a public safety alert Wednesday afternoon telling residents not to celebrate the New Year’s holiday with anyone outside of their household.
The alert states that COVID-19 is surging at a dangerous rate and that residents should cancel all gatherings for the holiday, urging them to “protect yourself, family and healthcare workers.”
As the New Year approaches there are growing concerns about how New Year’s Eve celebrations could lead to a deadlier COVID-19 surge and start to 2021.
“The concern for New Year’s Eve is totally different,” said Dr. Ali Mokdad. “It’s a different kind of celebration. People celebrate with friends, family and sometimes people they don’t know. It could be a super spreader event on top of what you’re seeing in Texas.”
Dr. Mokdad is a part of the University of Washington team behind a leading COVID-19 model the White House has relied upon throughout the pandemic. That model points to a worsening situation in Texas, much worse than the summer surge.
“Right now as the cases are increasing, we’re not seeing a rise in the prevalence of wearing masks and mobility is increasing,” Mokdad said.
Fewer masks and more people on the move, it’s been a crippling combo that fueled the winter surge in Texas. More than 60 percent of the state’s ICU beds are being used for COVID patients now.
And the peak is still to come. It’s expected on Jan. 9.
“All providers that have received COVID-19 vaccine must immediately vaccinate healthcare workers, Texans over the age of 65, and people with medical conditions that put them at a greater risk of severe disease or death from COVID-19. No vaccine should be kept in reserve.”
– DSHS Commissioner John Hellerstedt, M.D.
Texas continues to receive doses of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines and is distributing statewide to hospitals, pharmacies, local health departments, freestanding ERs, and other clinics.
Who’s getting the vaccine now?
If you are a front-line healthcare worker or resident of a long-term care facility, you are eligible now to receive the vaccine, since December 14. This group is considered Phase 1A.
If you are in Phase 1B, you are also eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine, depending on availability and the vaccine provider. Vaccine supply remains limited, but more vaccines will be delivered to providers each week. Phase 1B recipients include:
People 65 years of age and older
People 16 years of age and older with at least one chronic medical condition that puts them at increased risk for severe illness from the virus that causes COVID-19, such as but not limited to:
Cancer
Chronic kidney disease
COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)
Heart conditions, such as heart failure, coronary artery disease or cardiomyopathies
Solid-organ transplantation
Obesity and severe obesity (body mass index of 30 kg/m2 or higher)
Pregnancy
Sickle cell disease
Type 2 diabetes mellitus
If you are in Phase 1A or 1B, please visit the Texas COVID-19 Vaccine Provider Locations map to see if and where you might be able to get a vaccine today. Remember, your ability to get a vaccine today or this week will depend on vaccine availability at your provider’s office, clinic, or facility. Please call ahead to your provider.
Who’s getting the vaccine next and when?
The Expert Vaccine Allocation Panel (EVAP) is considering what criteria could be used for later stages of vaccine distribution. This webpage will be updated when those decisions are completed.
Spring 2021 is the best estimate of when the vaccine will be available for the general public, but that may change. It depends on vaccine production and how quickly other vaccines become available.
What do I need to do now?
Phase 1A: If you are a healthcare worker, contact your employer. If you are a long-term care resident,
contact your caretaker.
Do not show up at a hospital or clinic looking for a vaccine.
Instead please check their website for information about vaccine availability. Call if the website doesn’t answer your questions.
Remember, your ability to get a vaccine today or this week will depend on vaccine supply at hospitals, clinics. Texas receives more vaccine shipments each week. Please check this page frequently for updates.
Texas Department of State Health Service and Hopkins County/Sulphur Springs Emergency Management’s Dec. 31 COVID-19 updates showed one new probable COVID-19 cases, six additional recoveries, and one additional COVID-19 fatality for Hopkins County. While there were fewer patients in the local COVID unit Thursday the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Trauma Service area F hospitals was the highest reported to date. More women than men were reported to have received the vaccine as of Dec. 30, according to the Dec. 31 COVID-19 Vaccinations dashboard.
Dec. 31 COVID-19 Case Counts
Only one new probable COVID-19 case was reported for Hopkins County on Thursday. That makes 17 new probable cases so far this week, 193 new probable COVID-19 cases from Dec. 11-Dec. 31, and a total of 1,117 probable COVID-19 cases reported for Hopkins County since the state began tracking the data.
A probable COVID-19 case is determined when a person either tests positive through an antigen test or has a combination of symptoms and a known exposure to someone with COVID-19 without a more likely diagnosis.
The DSHS Dec. 31 COVID-19 Texas Case Counts dashboard also showed 1,122 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Dec. 31, four fewer cases than were reported on Dec. 30. DSHS did not indicate the reason for the correction. In the past, when cases have been removed from the case counts it has been due to duplications. That reduces the total number of new confirmed cases to 48 this week and 290 confirmed cases this month.
A confirmed COVID-19 case is one in which an individual receives a positive result through a molecular test that looks for the virus’s genetic material.
Combined, that’s 2,239 total COVID-19 cases reported for Hopkins County since March, including 2,053 people who have recovered from the virus. Six of those recoveries were reported on New Year’s Eve, and 1,359 from Dec. 11 to Dec. 31, although 810 were probable case recoveries added to the total on Dec. 11, when confirmed and probable case recoveries were combined. That’s 6.04 percent of the overall population in Hopkins County who have had COVID-19 cases so far this year.
The DSHS Dec. 31 COVID-19 Case Counts dashboard also showed 71 COVID-19 fatalities for Hopkins County, which means another Hopkins County resident was confirmed to have died from COVID-19. That’s 0.19 percent of the total population who have died from the virus, and a fatality rate of 3.17 percent among all Hopkins County COVID-19 cases this year.
Overall, that leaves 115 active COVID-19 cases in Hopkins County on Dec. 31, 10 less than were reported Wednesday.
COVID-19 Vaccinations
The DSHS Dec. 31 COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard showed 134 had received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as of 11:59 p.m. Dec. 30, that 29 more vaccinations reported for Hopkins County on Wednesday. Three vaccines were administered Dec. 13-19, 48 Dec. 20-26, and the rest were administered over the past four days.
According to the DSHS, 282,515 people in Texas have received the first dose of the vaccine. Of those, more women than men have taken the first dose of the vaccine, and more people ages 16-49 years have been vaccinated than all of the other age categories combined. In fact, almost as many women ages 16-49 have received the vaccine as all people ages 50 and older.
In Hopkins County, 61 people ages 16-49 have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine: 40 women and 21 men. As of 11:59 p.m. Dec. 30, only 31 people ages 50-64 received the first dose of the vaccine, 25 women and 6 men; 33 people ages 65-79, 19 women and 14 men; and nine people age 80 or older, seven women and two men.
According to the dashboard, 400 doses of Moderna have been received by Hopkins County providers, 100 by the hospital, 200 by the medical clinic, and 100 the pharmacy.
Credit: DSHS COVID-19 Vaccinatashboard
Hospital Reports
According to HC/SSEM’s Dec. 31 COVID-19 update, the patient count in the COVID Unit at CHRISTUS Mother Frances Hospital-Sulphur Springs shrunk from 30 patients on Wednesday to 26 patients on Thursday, which is still higher than the 23 COVID-19 positive patients in the COVID unit on Monday and 24 on Tuesday.
COVID-19 hospitalizations across Trauma Service Area F, which encompasses most of Northeast Texas, including Sulphur Springs and CMFH-SS, peaked Dec. 31 at 191 patients. That’s 24 more COVID-19 hospitalizations than were reported Wednesday. In fact, Thursday’s total is the most patients in TSA-F hospitals in one day since the state began tracking the data.
Not surprisingly, as the COVID-19 cases rose so did the overall patients counts across TSA-F, which also reduces the number of specialized equipment available at hospitals across the area.
There were 1,120 total staffed hospital beds in TSA-F on Dec. 31, three more than were reported on Wednesday. The number of staffed inpatient beds in TSA-F rose from 1,021 on Wednesday to 1,028 on Thursday. A total of 696 hospitalizations were reported on New Year’s Eve, an increase of 47 patients from the day before.
The number of available hospital beds across TSA-F surprisingly increased from 327 on Dec. 30 to 332 on Dec. 31. The number of ICU beds available got even smaller, reduced from just seven across TSA-F on Wednesday to only four on Thursday. DSHS’ Dec. 31 COVID-19 Test and Hospital Data dashboard also showed 72 ventilators available across TSA-F, three less than on Wednesday.
The rise in overall hospital numbers wasn’t enough to offset the rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations, which Dec. 31 accounted for 17.05 percent of the total hospital capacity for TSA-F. In fact, TSA-F’s COVID-19 hospitalizations have been at or above the 15 percent threshold established in GA-32 as high hospital capacity for eight of the last nine days, and the last five consecutively. The capacity dipped to 14.95 percent on Dec. 26, after three consecutive days above the 15 percent high capacity threshold, then rose to 15.47 percent Sunday, 17.23 percent on Monday, 15,96 percent Tuesday, 15 Wednesday, and was back up to 17.05 percent on Thursday.
COVID-19 Testing
HC/SSEM’s Dec. 31 COVID-19 update showed a total of 6,968 molecular COVID-19 tests have been conducted at the free testing site in Sulphur Springs since it opened on Sept. 25. That means 94 additional tests were performed at the free testing site on Dec. 30, increasing the number conducted in the last three days at 128-A Jefferson Street to 355 and Dec. 1-30 to 2,437.
DSHS reported a total of 14,072 COVID-19 tests conducted for Hopkins County this year, including 11,340 molecular or viral tests, 1,152 antigen tests, and 1,580 antibody tests. That’s 476 additional tests reported for Hopkins County from Dec. 29 to Dec. 30.
The free center in Sulphur Springs will be closed on New Year’s Day but will resume weekdays in January from 9 a.m.to 6 p.m. and Saturdays until 5 p.m. at 128-A Jefferson Street.
Online registration is required at www.GoGetTested.com in order to be tested at the free testing center. Testing is open to anyone regardless of address. Even children ages 3 and up can be tested, provided an adult register, and accompanies them to have the oral swab test performed. The Sulphur Springs free testing site is not a drive-through location. Testing is conducted inside the building.
Individuals should refrain from eating, drinking or using tobacco products a minimum of 15-20 minutes before or testing will be delayed. Those testing will need to bring a photo ID and the number provided upon registration with them to the test location. Masks must be worn into the testing center. Testing typically takes about 5 minutes.
Nursing Home Reports
Two additional resident fatalities were reported at Sulphur Springs nursing facilities, for a total of 47 nursing home residents who have died from COVID-19 from March through Dec. 17, the most recent data available from Texas Health and Human Services.
Carriage House reported one additional resident fatality on Dec. 17, for a total of 28 resident deaths from the 78 who have tested positive for COVID-19. Five employees of Carriage House were reported to still have COVID-19. One additional resident at Carriage House also reportedly tested positive for COVID-19, giving the facility nine active resident cases on Dec. 17, according to the HHS Dec. 31 COVID-19 nursing homes report.
Rock Creek Health and Rehabilitation LLC also reported one additional COVID-19 deaths, for a total of 5 fatalities from the 51 residents who have tested positive for the virus since March. One additional resident also tested positive for COVID-19 at Rock Creek, giving the facility a total of 37 active resident cases and 18 active employee cases of COVID-19 on Dec. 17.
Sulphur Springs Health and Rehabilitation reported one additional employee had tested positive for COVID-19, giving the facility a total of three active employee cases on Dec. 17.
Sunny Springs Nursing and Rehab on Dec. 17 reported no active cases in either residents or employees.
Gracias por SEGUIRNOS, este artículo contiene la revista digital de HOUSTON de ¡Que Onda Magazine! De fecha 31 de diciembre del 2020 – 06 de enero del 2021
California on Wednesday announced the nation’s second confirmed case of the new and apparently more contagious variant of the coronavirus, offering a strong indication that the infection is spreading more widely in the United States.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the infection found in Southern California during an online conversation with Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“I don’t think Californians should think that this is odd. It’s to be expected,” Fauci said.
Newsom did not provide any details about the person who was infected.
The announcement came 24 hours afterword of the first reported U.S. variant infection, which emerged in Colorado. That person was identified Wednesday as a Colorado National Guardsman who had been sent to help out at a nursing home struggling with an outbreak. Health officials said a second Guard member may have it too.
The cases triggered a host of questions about how the version circulating in England arrived in the U.S. and whether it is too late to stop it now, with top experts saying it is probably already spreading elsewhere in the United States.
“The virus is becoming more fit, and we’re like a deer in the headlights,” warned Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute. He noted that the U.S. does far less genetic sequencing of virus samples to discover variants than other developed nations and thus was probably slow to detect the new mutation.
The two Guard members had been dispatched on Dec. 23 to work at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home in the small town of Simla, in a mostly rural area about 90 miles outside Denver, said Dr. Rachel Herlihy, a state epidemiologist. They were among six Guard members sent to the home.
Nasal swab samples taken from the two as part of the Guard’s routine coronavirus testing were sent to the state laboratory, which began looking for the variant after its spread was announced in Britain earlier this month, Herlihy said. Samples from staff and residents at the nursing home are also being screened for the variant at the lab, but no evidence of it has been found so far, she said.
The Colorado case announced Tuesday involves a man in his 20s who had not traveled recently, officials said. He has mild symptoms and is isolating at his home near Denver, while the person with the suspected case is isolating at a Colorado hotel while further genetic analysis is done on his sample, officials said.
The nursing home said it is working closely with the state and is also looking forward to beginning vaccinations next week.
Several states – including California, Massachusetts, and Delaware – are also analyzing suspicious virus samples for the variant, said Dr. Greg Armstrong, who directs genetic sequencing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said the CDC is working with a national lab that gets samples from around the country to broaden that search, with results expected within days.
The discovery in Colorado has added urgency to the nation’s vaccination drive against COVID-19, which has killed more than 340,000 people in the U.S.
Britain is seeing infections soar and hospitalizations climb to their highest levels on record. The variant has also been found in several other countries.
Scientists have found no evidence that it is more lethal or causes more severe illness, and they believe the vaccines now being dispensed will be effective against it. But a faster-spreading virus could swamp hospitals with seriously ill patients.
The discovery overseas led the CDC to issue rules on Christmas Day requiring travelers arriving from Britain to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test. But U.S. health officials said the Colorado patient’s lack of travel history suggests the new variant is already spreading in this country.
Topol said it is too late for travel bans.
“We’re behind in finding it. Colorado is likely one of many places it’s landed here,” he said. “It’s all over the place. How can you ban travel from everywhere?”
Colorado public health officials are conducting contact tracing to determine its spread.
Researchers estimate the variant is 50% to 70% more contagious, said Dr. Eric France, Colorado’s chief medical officer.
“Instead of only making two or three other people sick, you might actually spread it to four or five people,” France said. “That means we’ll have more cases in our communities. Those number of cases will rise quickly and, of course, with more cases come more hospitalizations.”
London and southeast England were placed under strict lockdown measures earlier this month because of the variant, and dozens of countries banned flights from Britain. France also briefly barred trucks from Britain before allowing them back in, provided the drivers got tested for the virus.
New versions of the virus have been seen almost since it was first detected in China a year ago. It is common for viruses to undergo minor changes as they reproduce and move through a population. The fear is that mutations at some point will become significant enough to defeat the vaccines.
South Africa has also discovered a highly contagious COVID-19 variant that is driving the country’s latest spike of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.
The United States reported 125,220 current Covid-19 hospitalizations on Wednesday, setting a new record high since the pandemic began, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP).
This is the 29th consecutive day that the US has remained above 100,000 current hospitalizations.
According to CTP data, the highest hospitalization numbers are:
Jianghan Road in Wuhan throngs with shoppers and strollers bundled up against the late December freeze. Bells ring out on the hour from the landmark Hankou Customs House where the road terminates near the wide banks of the Yangtze River.
Restaurants along the city’s main pedestrian thoroughfare are packed, even on an icy weekday night, and resound with loud conversation.
The bustle, bright lights, and din of the street appear to show a city back to some normality one year on from 31 December 2019, the day that health authorities in the city reported an unknown pneumonia outbreak to World Health Organization (WHO) colleagues in Beijing.
But under the surface, a struggle continues between residents of the city that were the first to feel the pain of the coronavirus pandemic and authorities over how to remember the initial response to the crisis.
“In the coming days I think people will have a bit of fear,” said 22-year old Zhou Xiangning, a Wuhan resident who caught the virus in mid-January. “Not a fear of the virus returning, but fear from the memories of that time,” he said over a steaming bamboo tray of soup filled with thin-skinned dumplings.
Wuhan and its roughly 11 million residents were abruptly locked down on 23 January after weeks of being told that the virus was controllable, preventable, and not contagious. The aim was to limit greater spread of the disease that has since become known as Covid-19, and that has spread around the world and killed almost 2 million people.
In Wuhan, many people are still guarded about what they can and cannot say about what happened a year ago and the lessons they learned.
In April, after 76 days, Wuhan emerged from lockdown. Aided by thousands of local volunteers who delivered and distributed scarce PPE and food supplies and drove ill people to hospitals; by doctors and nurses working until collapse or until the virus overtook them; by workers who built temporary hospitals in a matter of days to relieve inundated facilities, Wuhan made it through.
The memory the Chinese Communist Party wants people to keep, though, is of the larger national effort to control the outbreak. The inrush of medical staff and People’s Liberation Army soldiers from provinces across China and the emergency response from the central government after 23 January get key billing.
A three-month exhibition showcasing China’s coronavirus response, nearing its end in Wuhan, captures all this and more. It paints a China triumphant over the virus, with inconvenient narratives left out.
But there is no mention of Dr. Li Wenliang, the ophthalmologist hailed as a whistleblower after being reprimanded by police for warning colleagues about a “Sars-like illness” on 30 December last year, and who later died from Covid. Anything gaining traction on Chinese social media not supporting the correct collective memory is swiftly censored.
What still irks some Wuhan residents is the downplaying of the seriousness of the virus in the weeks before the lockdown when people such as Li were trying to sound the warning.
One of those was Zhang Hai, who lost his 76-year old father on 1 February. Zhang believes the death could have been prevented if it was known the virus was contagious in mid-January before he decided to return to Wuhan from Shenzhen after his father broke a leg.
“I won’t rest until [Wuhan officials] are held accountable,” Zhang said. He has drafted a letter to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, calling for local officials to be held accountable for the period from 31 December to the 23 January lockdown, but his efforts, along with those of several other families, to sue the local government have so far come to nothing.
“They want to sell a story that they effectively controlled the virus here, but they also try to wipe out the cause,” Zhang said. “The cause is concealing and covering up the information early on, but they seem to only focus on the results afterward. That does nothing to wipe the pain out of the hearts of those who lost family members.”
Han, still grieving from the loss of her father to the virus in February, does not want her full name used out of fear of retribution by authorities. She also wants the mistakes from that period exposed to a proper investigation.
Her father became infected a few days before the lockdown but was not given a test for Covid, so he was not counted in the death toll. Han said authorities could have done more to warn residents.
Zhang and Han said they hoped the forthcoming investigation by the WHO into the virus outbreak would also take into account the actions by the local government during the first three weeks of January 2020.
WHO officials have said the investigation, which will commence after the team arrives in January 2021 and undergoes a 14-day quarantine, will focus strictly on determining possible zoonotic sources of the virus.
The starting point for the WHO team is expected to be the South China Seafood Market, where a large number of virus samples were detected after it was closed and sanitized on 1 January 2020.
There appears to be little to look at now. Wet snow mixed with a biting wind swirls around the shuttered market. An 8ft-high wall covered in placid scenes of misty mountain tops blocks any view inside the now soundless building.
Han hopes that one day the world will know what happened at the start of the outbreak. “Before the pandemic, I had faith in the government, but after this, it feels like telling the truth is so difficult,” she said. “I hope more people can speak up and tell the truth without fearing someone will come after them.”
As we get closer to New Year’s Eve, police departments, including Houston, are warning about celebratory gunfire.
HPD Chief Art Acevedo wrote that his department will be deploying teams to arrest anyone who engages in celebratory gunfire.
“Please do not risk seriously wounding or killing someone by engaging in this reckless behavior,” Acevedo said.
But Acevedo wasn’t the only one trying to spread the word early about the dangers of celebratory gunfire.
The Dallas Police Department said committing the offense could mean a fine of up to $4,000 and a year in jail. In some cases, the charge of deadly conduct means up to a $10,000 fine and possible jail time from two to 10 years.
You’re asked to call 911 if you see something.
Sadly, the urgent warning isn’t often heeded.
In January 2020, a 61-year-old woman celebrating the new year with her family was shot and killed by celebratory gunfire as she stood in the driveway.
Just three years earlier, state representative, Armando “Mando” Martinez of Hidalgo County was injured by celebratory gunfire.
According to the City of Houston, there is no Texas law that specifically addresses celebratory gunfire. The state has laws addressing deadly conduct and reckless discharge.
After the shooting, Martinez filed House Bill 86, which would have criminalized celebratory gunfire. HB 86 would have made it a Class A misdemeanor “to discharge a weapon without an intended target and would have made it a first-degree felony if the gunfire resulted in serious bodily injury or death.”
The bill was successfully voted out of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. It died when it didn’t pass out of House Calendars.
Heavy Rainfall Beginning Today Will Continue Through Thursday Afternoon:
The National Weather Service has issued a Flash Flood Watch for nearly all of Southeast Texas beginning at 6:00 p.m. this evening through 3:00 p.m. Thursday afternoon.
A strong system of thunderstorms will bring heavy rainfall across Harris County and the surrounding region beginning today and continuing through Thursday. Widespread rainfall totals of 1 to 3 inches, with isolated areas of 4+ inches, are likely. Street flooding is likely in urban and low-lying areas.
There is a low probability some of the stronger storms could bring high winds, hail, or tornadoes.
Residents should closely monitor local forecasts for updates over the next 24 hours.
What you should do:
DRIVE SAFELY
If possible, stay home and off the roadways. If you must go out, never drive into high water, and use extreme caution at underpasses and low-lying areas where water accumulates. Motorists should be extra cautious at night when high water can be difficult to see.
Always remember to Turn Around, Don’t Drown! DO NOT DRIVE through high water and NEVER DRIVE AROUND BARRICADES!
Just two feet of water can sweep your vehicle away.
STAY INFORMED
Check driving conditions before getting on roadways at Houston TranStar: www.houstontranstar.org.
Those traveling around Texas can view statewide road conditions at DriveTexas.
View live rainfall rates on the Harris County Flood Warning System Website: www.harriscountyfws.org.
