Texas Joins the Big Boys' Club

The unofficial motto of the Lone Star state holds that "everything's bigger in Texas."

Texas may not quite be Number One but today it joined New York and Florida by logging a one-day total in excess of of 10,000 Covid-19 infections.

The state's record high of 10,028 new cases served as another alarming new measure of the swift resurgence of COVID-19 nationwide and the failures of the country's response. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott aggressively began one of the country's fastest reopenings in May, but reversed course last week, ordering bars closed and mandating face coverings in much of the state. 

New York and Florida are the only other states to record more than 10,000 new cases in a single day. New York hit that grim total back in April, when New York City hospitals were overwhelmed and hundreds of people were dying every day. Florida topped 10,000 confirmed cases last week. 

Texas surged past 8,000 statewide hospitalizations for the first time over the Fourth of July weekend — a more than quadruple increase in the past month.

No word yet on when Texas hopes to take its rightful place atop the podium.