Even as Houston-area intensive-care wards approach full capacity, the worst is yet to come because of “the huge amount of transmission going on in our community,” Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said in an interview Thursday.

Current trends in Harris County, which includes Houston, indicate the caseload will triple or quadruple by mid-July, Hotez said, citing modeling by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s PolicyLab. Such a scenario would be “apocalyptic,” he said. “We can’t go there.”