Local (and not-so-local) COVID-19 updates

[edschweppe]

As of 4PM today, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is reporting 19 newly reported confirmed COVID-19 deaths (for a total of 7,860 confirmed deaths), 163 newly reported confirmed cases (for a total of 103,539) and 9,391 new patients tested by molecular tests (for a total of 830,666), with a total of 1,048,942 molecular tests administered to date. The ratio of newly confirmed cases to individuals tested by molecular test is 1.7%. The state also reported no newly reported probable deaths (with the total remaining at 200), 61 newly reported probable cases (for a total of 5,128), and 650 patients tested by antibody tests (for a total of 70,476). In total, the state reported 19 new deaths (for a total of 8,060) and 224 new cases (for a total of 108,667).

Deaths and cases down, but so are tests; it is, after all, the weekend and I've noticed a definite tendency for numbers to go down over the weekend, only to go back up around Tuesday. Today's percent-positive rate dropped, which is nice to see; on the other hand, the three-day weighted average rate is still (slightly) above its low from the middle of last week.

Still, it's much better now here in Massachusetts than in, say, Texas, where the Governor decided to reopen the economy without being bothered to actually get the pandemic under control ... and is now facing "the prospect of mortality like that seen in New York three months ago". How Texas lost control of the virus:

It became clear that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was in retreat when he closed the bars.

Ever since restarting the Lone Star state's economy in early May, Abbott ignored the pleas of mayors and county leaders to impose strict rules to stop covid-19. The 62-year-old Republican appeared repeatedly on Sean Hannity's Fox News show to tout his commitment to keeping business open, while the pandemic quietly gathered strength.

During the past week, Texas saw record case numbers, and hospitals in Houston, its biggest city, neared their limits. Even then, Abbott agreed only to pause the reopening. He didn't order people to wear masks or stop going out.

But Friday, he shut the saloons at high noon.

Abbott's reversal underscored a crisis that was weeks in the making and driven by four distinct causes: the failure of public-health work like contact tracing, heavy economic pressure, the political neutering of its cities, and Abbott's solidarity with President Donald Trump's agenda. Every week of free commerce allowed more Texans to fall ill.

Now, the second-most-populous state faces the prospect of mortality like that seen in New York three months ago. Texas is fast becoming the new center of the pandemic in the U.S. The nation on Saturday saw total cases jump 1.9%, the biggest percentage increase in six weeks, with more than 45,000 new infections.

On Friday, the top official in Harris County, which includes Houston, declared an emergency, and thousands of cell phones buzzed with warnings to shelter in place. "Today, we find ourselves careening toward a catastrophic and unsustainable situation," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said during a media briefing. "There is a severe and uncontrolled outbreak of covid-19. Our hospitals are using 100% of their base capacity now, and are having to start relying on surge capacity."

The counties around Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio all saw their case numbers at least triple since the reopening began, although none started with as many as Harris. Across Texas, the rate of positive covid-19 tests has risen to 17.5%, far above the 10% threshold that's considered concerning, according to data presented by the White House virus task force on Friday. The same day, the Texas state health department put the rate at 13.2%, still more than double the May 31 figure of 5.4%.

[ ... ]

Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis said the state reopened too fast, while the virus was still spreading, and that the governor hobbled local efforts to control it.

"If ever there was a time when I wished my predictions about what would happen were wrong, this was it," Ellis said. "The sentiment on the ground here is that we are scared to death."

Abbott's office didn't respond to a request for comment.

[ ... ]

Abbott finally imposed a lockdown beginning April 1. It lasted only a month. He also said his orders pre-empted any city or county rules.

"One of the major ways that the governor miscalculated and caused the second wave is when he did open Texas, he took away the local governments' ability to enact common-sense requirements," said Clay Jenkins, the judge of Dallas County, its top elected executive position.

In Houston, the flash point was Harris County Judge Hidalgo's mask order, which included a $1,000 fine. Hidalgo, a 29-year-old naturalized citizen born in Bogota, wasn't the first local leader to mandate masks. But her order inflamed state Republicans, drawing protests, cries of tyranny and eventually an intercession from Abbott.

Texas reopened in phases, first with restaurants at 25 percent capacity, then bars and other businesses. The capacity limits gradually eased. Each phase brought a jump in cases 10 to 14 days later, said Marilyn Felkner, a public health professor at the University of Texas at Austin. "It's real easy to see looking backward," Felkner said. "It was probably a little bit harder going forward."

[ ... ]

As of Saturday, Texas had 143,371 cases, of which 29,163 were in Harris County and Houston. That's about half what New York state had in late April, at the peak of its outbreak, but the road ahead for Texas could still be long and grim. At an urgent-care center in South Austin, the line for rapid covid-19 tests wrapped around the building at 5 a.m. Sunday. People sat in tailgating chairs and on top of buckets. One group of men was drinking beer from a cooler.

"It's going to be a very busy month for the health-care systems," said Lakey, the University of Texas official.

In a television interview Friday evening, Abbott said he wished he’d closed the bars sooner.

The town of Acton has yet to provide an update for today. The most recent update, at 8PM on Wednesday 6/24, reported 173 cumulative cases with 2 individuals in isolation, 150 persons recovered and 21 fatalities.