Nearly 600 patients wait for hospital beds in Houston following surge in COVID cases

As of Saturday, 575 patients are waiting for a general bed in hospitals in the Houston area. Eighty-seven patients are waiting for an intensive care unit beds.

Hospital officials in Houston said last week that area hospitals with beds had insufficient numbers of nurses to serve them.

Nurses the state was going to surge to the area have yet to arrive, more than two weeks after they were promised.

Gov. Greg Abbott appealed for out-of-state help to fight the third wave of COVID-19 in Texas while two more of the state's largest school districts announced mask mandates in defiance of the governor last week.

As of Saturday, there are 3.3M confirmed cases of COVID-19 and there have been 54,289 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. 46.33% of Texans have been fully vaccinated.

COVID-19 infections have continued to soar in Florida. 

The state reported 151,415 new infections in the last week -- that's 14 times higher than the number of new cases reported just two months ago. For the week of June 11, the state recorded 10,461 new cases and a positivity rate of 3.4%. 

Hospitalizations have surged to 15,750, the Florida Hospital Association reported.

The state also recorded 286 deaths over the past week and a new case positivity rate of 19.3%.

The White House offered a glimmer of hope on the vaccination front Saturday.

More than 991,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered Friday. Among those, 604,000 people were newly vaccinated, White House COVID-19 Data Director Cyrus Shahpar said Saturday. 

It’s a sign of progress compared to last Saturday when 840,000 doses were reported.

So far, over 197 million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose and more than 167 million are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told Florida superintendents in a new letter that he’ll stand with any school that defies Gov. Ron DeSantis by implementing a mask mandate.

He also spelled out how schools can use federal COVID-19 relief dollars, already appropriated by Congress, "to support any activity necessary to maintain operations," including reimbursing pay of education officials withheld by the governor. DeSantis later admitted he couldn't slash superintendents' pay since it is a local matter, but implausibly called on superintendents to slash their own pay if they defied his ban on mask mandates.

"Several school districts in Florida have already moved to adopt universal masking policies despite the State’s prohibition, and I want you to know that the U.S. Department of Education stands with you," he wrote. "Your decisions are vital to safely reopen schools and maintain safe in-person instruction, and they are undoubtedly in the best interest of your students."

He later added, "In these unprecedented and difficult times, the leadership and courage that you are showing will make a difference in the lives of the students whom you serve."

-ABC News' Anne Flaherty and Sophie Tatum