One Texas county says it's had 85 babies less than 1 year old test positive for coronavirus

• Nueces County, Texas officials say 85 babies under the age of one have tested positive for coronavirus.
• Texas is experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases, and Nueces County has the fastest growth in new cases on average of any other metropolitan county, one official said.
• 8,100 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Nueces County so far and 82 have died.

Officials from Nueces County in Texas are asking people to take care to curb the spread of COVID-19 as 85 children under the age of one have tested positive for the virus.

"We currently have 85 babies under the age of one year in Nueces County that have all tested positive for Covid-19," said Annette Rodriguez, director of public health for Corpus Christi Nueces County, per CNN. "These babies have not even had their first birthday yet. Please help us stop the spread of this disease," she added.

Texas is experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases, and Nueces County, in particular, is seeing a spike. "Nueces County has the fastest growth in new cases on the seven-day average than any other metropolitan county in the state," said Corpus Christi city manager Peter Zanoni.

"You can see the trend line is relatively flat until July, and this is where we have had that huge spike in cases, and this is why it's turned into a major problem for Nueces County," he added.

Thus far, Nueces County has had 8,100 people test positive for COVID-19, of which 82 have died. In July 2019 the county's population stood at 362,000, per the US census.

Texas' coronavirus outbreak has worsened over the past several weeks. To date, Texas has had a total of 321,000 coronavirus cases and 3,889 deaths.

Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told Business Insider's Rhea Mahbubani that Texas had "opened prematurely" when Gov. Greg Abbott decided to proceed with an "Open Texas" plan on May 1. Abbott has since halted reopening, as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations spiked in the state.