New COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continued to increase over the June 27-28 weekend in Harris County.

As of June 28, 1,544 of the 1,622 operational intensive care unit beds were occupied in Harris County, according to the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council. A total of 582 of those beds, or 37.7%, were occupied by COVID-19 patients, up from 520 on June 27.

The Texas Medical Center released new information on ICU surge capacity over the weekend based on internal data collected from CHI St. Luke's Medical Center, Houston Methodist Hospital System, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Herman Health Systems, Texas Children's Hospital and the University of Texas Medical Branch.

Based on that data, which officials said is updated on a minute-by-minute basis, approximately 877 ICU beds exist in surge capacity that can be activated in two phases. Bed occupancy growth projections show the TMC may need to start using its first set of 373 surge capacity beds around July 1. However, those beds are not projected to reach capacity within the next two weeks. The next phase of surge capacity includes another 504 temporary ICU beds, which can be further expanded by converting non-ICU beds.

Harris County officials confirmed another 1,021 new cases of COVID-19 over the June 27-28 weekend, including 908 on June 27 and 113 on June 28. The city of Houston does not report new cases on Sundays, so cases for June 28 only include data from Harris County from outside of the city.

The total case count now stands at 29,276, including 18,777 cases that are considered active and 10,128 that are confirmed to have recovered.

As of June 26, the 7-day average for test positivity was around 22% for the eight counties that make up the Greater Houston area, according to TMC data. That number was more than double the 7-day average from June 22, which was 10%.

Another 10 COVID-19 deaths were recorded over the weekend, bringing the total deaths caused by the coronavirus in Harris County to 371. A total of 46 of those deaths were confirmed within the past week.