HOUSTON — (Editor's note: On July 30, 2020, Texas DSHS announced an error in the calculation of COVID-19 deaths for the state. DSHS corrected the cumulative death count for four dates from July 27 to July 30. This article was published before the error was reported. The correct single-day reporting count for July 28 is 161.)
Texas reported 8,341 new COVID-19 cases and 164 new deaths on Thursday. The state's seven-day average of new coronavirus cases had been on a downward trend since July 20. The positivity rate is 12.83% as of July 27, which means more than one in every eight people who have been tested for the new coronavirus, tested positive.
Harris County reported 601 new cases and eight deaths on Tuesday. It's the eighth time since the pandemic began that the county has reported at least 600 cases in a single day. All of those occurred in July.
The Houston Health Department reported 864 and eight new deaths. Tuesday's count is the 13th time this month that Houston has reported at least 800 cases in a single day.
The state recently changed how it reports new COVID-19 deaths, now using death certificate information. Not only will the state report the number of death reports it receives in a given day, but it has adjusted the curve of daily new deaths to reflect when those people actually died, as opposed to only the day the death was reported.
A Houston nursing home is tied for fourth-most number of COVID-19 deaths with 20. A different Houston nursing home is tied with two other locations in El Paso and San Antonio for the most number of cumulative COVID-19 cases statewide with 117. You can find that data here.