Urgent calls for field hospitals. Cars lined up for hours at drive-through testing centres. Bars boarded up and grocery stores enforcing masks.

Texas today resembles the state in the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic. Except now, the outbreak is far worse.Records for COVID-19-related deaths and hospitalisations are set almost daily. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who on Friday extended a statewide disaster order first issued in March, is now telling the public to brace for what's ahead.