The Texas Medical Center had 544 COVID-19 patients staying in its hospitals Nov. 5, a 3% drop compared to what the medical center reported a week ago Oct. 29, according to the medical center’s data dashboard.

This comes despite a 10% jump in daily coronavirus patient admittance over the same period at 117 new patients compared to 106 seen Oct. 29.

For context, 544 is still higher than the 502 COVID-19 patients reported by Texas Medical Center on Oct. 19, though far lower than the 685 patients medical center hospitals housed at the start of September.

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Of the 2,700 patients tested Nov. 4, 4.1% tested positive for the coronavirus, a 2% decrease from the week prior, according to TMC data. For reference, 3.9% tested positive Oct. 17, and 3.5% tested positive Sept. 22. This still pales in comparison to when COVID-19 hit its peak in Greater Houston on July 9, when 23% of those tested came up positive for the virus.

These numbers come as Greater Houston—defined in the TMC dataset as Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Liberty, Montgomery, and Waller counties—reported 661 new cases Nov. 5, down from 982 new cases Oct. 29. In comparison, Greater Houston saw 855 new cases Oct. 22, 845 on Oct. 15 and 478 on Oct. 8.


Meanwhile, the total number of intensive care unit beds in use has increased to 1,242 since Oct. 29, a number that includes both ICU and routine surgical beds. Of those, the number of COVID-19 patients using ICU beds has increased to 176 reported Nov. 5.