Volunteer Houston, a program of Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston,has created a COVID-19 Response initiative to allow people to browse volunteer needs specific to the pandemic response efforts. Needs vary from distributing meals to writing letters to senior citizens to supporting Harris County Public Health with data entry and logistics related to Covid testing.

Town hall panelists include Dr. Umair Shah, Harris County Public Health executive director.

哈里斯縣(Harris County)發言人派瑞茲（Elizabeth Perez）表示，測試工作每天都達極限，而這些測試通常要在上午9時就開始了。據稱當地一些地方，在線測試諮詢已經癱瘓了，主要是要求測試民眾太多，電話等待時間要超過30分鐘

Another 1,437 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Harris County July 1, causing the rolling average of new cases per day to increase again after falling for several days. The county has now confirmed an average of 1,010 new cases per day over the past seven days.

There was a time, not so long ago, when Houston’s ability to contain the virus made it a model among major metropolitan areas. Not anymore. Authorities report more than 20,000 active cases in Harris County alone, the highest total in Texas, and the COVID-19 threat has reached the highest level on the county’s new coronavirus scale.

Houston is among a number of Texas cities that have recently seen steep increases in cases and hospitalizations. Dr. Umair Shah, executive director of the county health department, believes it was likely some cases could be traced to the protests. “We just don’t know how much,” he said.

In Harris County, home to Houston, slots at public testing sites are filling up within hours after they open. “The demand increased tremendously in a very short period of time,” said Martha Marquez, a spokeswoman for Harris County’s health department. “Everybody is seeing huge lines.”

Baytown has a drive-through testing site for COVID-19 this week, as Harris County Public Health is set up at Memorial Baptist Church through Friday. Testing is free, but reservations must be made online or by phone before going to the site

So far, more than 2,200 members of the UH community have registered and over 1,000 have completed the Epi Corps (Epidemiology Corps) program, designed in collaboration with the Houston Health Department and Harris County Public Health.

"There have been a lot of inconsistent or conflicting messages that have happened," Dr. Umair Shah, the executive director of the Harris County Public Health Department in Texas, recently told ABC News.