Those in the 30-49 age range were hospitalized this month at nearly double their rate in January, the pandemic's previous peak in Texas.

Texas has sent hundreds of additional doctors and nurses to Lubbock to staff overflow medical tents outside hospitals and relieve weary frontline workers. More than 5,400 extra medical personnel have been deployed across Texas, said Lara Anton, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. In East Texas, which was spared the worst of earlier surges, more than 400 extra medical staff are on the ground, according to state figures. “There are only so many medical personnel to go around. The medical contractors used across Texas are “running short on staff members,” said Joe Moudy, Lubbock County's emergency management director.

(Lucia Starbuck/KUNR Public Radio/Report for America via AP)Overwhelmed hospitals are converting chapels, cafeterias, waiting rooms, hallways, even a parking garage into patient treatment areas. The crush of patients is forcing the city to send its non-COVID-19 cases to hospitals elsewhere in the state. In Kansas, hospitals are converting spaces such as chapels and cafeterias for use by COVID-19 patients, said Cindy Samuelson, spokeswoman for the Kansas Hospital Association. Stormont Vail Health in Topeka, Kansas, devoted an entire hospital floor to COVID-19 patients as their numbers swelled, hitting 90 on Wednesday. Maryland health officials similarly set up a centralized clearinghouse with information on available ICU beds so that hospitals need only make a single phone call.

Fans walk toward the stadium for the first home football game of the season at the University of Texas at Austin. That’s compared to 23% in counties with a smaller proportion of students, including larger metropolitan areas like Houston and Dallas that also house universities. The Texas counties where university students make up the biggest share of the population are home to Texas State University, Texas Tech University, Stephen F. Austin State University, Sul Ross State University, Sam Houston State University, and several A&M campuses, including the flagship in College Station, Tarleton State University, Prairie View A&M University, Texas A&M University-Kingsville and Texas A&M University-Commerce. “It’s not about me,” Cook said, in a mantra he has repeated to college students. Disclosure: Prairie View A&M University, Sam Houston State University, Sul Ross State University, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, Texas A&M University System, University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas System, University of Texas at El Paso and University of Houston have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors.

The Texas Tribune spoke to epidemiologists and health experts about what the state can expect with schools and universities resuming online or in-person instruction. Dr. Ron Cook, professor at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and the city of Lubbocks public health authority: I think were all holding our breath on what opening schools and opening colleges and universities is going to do. I don't think it was any one of those things that caused the second surge that we saw they likely all contributed to a degree. I don't think we can adopt an attitude that the calvary is going to ride in to rescue us I don't think a vaccine will emerge and suddenly the virus vanishes. Disclosure: Texas Tech University, UTHealth, the University of North Texas, and Texas A&M University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors.