Coronavirus: We’re Heading To Pure Hell’ As COVID-19 Cases Spike In Texas

A doctor tells Sky News they are receiving many more sick patients and are bracing themselves for a “tsunami” of infections.

Texas is at the centre of huge spike in coronavirus cases in the US, with hospital admissions quadrupling since the end of May.
At the Houston Memorial Medical Centre (HMMC), one doctor told her they are “heading to pure hell”.

One of the first tasks on entering the coronavirus wing at the HMMC is to get your photograph taken.
It’s to hang around your neck so the patients can relate better to you and see what you really look like.
Because after three layers of protective tunics, double gloves, double shoe coverings, a plastic beret, two masks and a full face visor, you look more like an astronaut from the city’s famous Lyndon B Johnson Space Centre than a medic.

Strict hygiene protocols are among the reasons the hospital team can boast a 100% success rate in treating COVID-19 patients over a period which lasted longer than 80 days.
“Then the lockdown was lifted,” chief medic Dr Joseph Varon told us. “And it changed. We are getting many more patients, they are coming to us much sicker and a few are so sick, we can’t save them.”

Even the hospital’s reduced success rate of 96% is impressive.
But now Dr Varon, along with the state’s other doctors, is bracing himself for what’s been called the “tsunami” of infections heading this way.
They are already adapting a 30-bed wing to cope with the extra patients they believe will come in the next few weeks.
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