Texas 'wide open for business' despite surge in Covid-19 cases

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/01/texas-business-open-coronavirus-cases-surge


An older man in an orange apron greets customers at the Home Depot in College Station, Texas. Signs serving as a reminder they are living through a pandemic are plastered on the sliding glass doors: “Face covering required.”

The reminder is much needed because to an outsider, Texas looked almost the same in July 2019 as it does in July 2020, despite Covid-19 having claimed more than 6,000 lives in the state and more than 150,000 lives in the US since March.

Customers at the home improvement store walk in wearing masks, which have become highly politicized, only to lower them below their chins to speak or remove them altogether.

In the upscale neighborhood of Montrose in Houston, the multi-story Agora coffee house is full of people hungry for coffee, pastries and conversation. It’s difficult to spot an open seat inside or outside on the patio. It’s also difficult to spot anyone wearing anything resembling a face covering.

The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, a Republican, caught flak for allowing the reopening of bars, restaurants, movie theaters and shopping malls back in early May. In June, he said that Texas was “wide open for business”. Now in late July, more than four months into the Covid-19 pandemic, a mandatory mask order is in place across the state – a reversal from Abbott’s initial position that the government should not infringe on personal rights by telling citizens what to do.

*snip*

[progree]

1. I thought they closed bars again, plus the mask order. Cases down 21% over last 12 days

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/texas-coronavirus-cases.html

Daily new cases, 7 day moving average
7/19: 10,461
7/31: 8,231
-20.8%

But deaths are soaring.

[TexasTowelie]

3. It's improved.

However, deaths are a lagging indicator. Most of my friends are unemployed so they are able to isolate themselves, but I'm certainly concerned about my buddy who is a fourth grade teacher in one of the Dallas suburbs.

[Beartracks]

4. "Down 21%?? Yeehaw, we won!! Let's get them bars open again!"

You know that's what a lot of them are thinking



=======

[progree]

6. Yup, that's the philosophy in many states - "we bent the curve, time to go to phase 4 reopening"

and never seems to matter how high the number of new cases or new deaths, or ICU utilization is. Just that the number has plateaued or has been bent downward, and no thought given at all about what reopenings and relaxations will likely do to the curve.

[TexasTowelie]

2. I live in the city (Bryan) adjacent to College Station and before the governor's order to wear masks

in businesses only about 30% were doing so. My recent trips to H.E.B. for groceries was a marked improvement, but there were 3 people without masks and 4 people wearing a mask incorrectly so that put about 85% following the rules. I went to pick up prescriptions at Walmart at the beginning of the week and everyone there was wearing a mask there.

We are seeing improving numbers and the number of hospitalizations has been dropping; however, the death toll has increased within the past week since it is a lagging indicator. We may be able to flatten the curve, but the number of new infections is still too high and it is still too dangerous to resume any semblance of normalcy. I haven't had my hair cut in over six months and other than trimming the bangs so my hair doesn't get in my eyes. I am waiting until after Labor Day to see a barber.

[Beartracks]

5. I see a lot more masks, too, but still too many dick noses.

========

[KY_EnviroGuy]

7. Here's an excellent article contrary to Abbott by a medical expert....

Coronavirus expert Peter Hotez reveals how Texas can reopen by October — maybe even for football
The Houston Chronicle
Lisa Gray July 31, 2020

Read more: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/life/article/coronavirus-expert-peter-hotez-texas-open-football-15449746.php

Excerpts:

The first piece is to recognize that we’re not in a good position right now nationally. We’ve had this massive resurgence across the southern United States. The southern U.S. alone accounts for about 25 percent of the world’s daily cases of COVID-19. That’s not good.

And and even though some of the numbers are starting to plateau in places like Houston, we’ve plateaued at a very high level; we’re still going at 100 miles an hour. We’ve got thousands of new cases per day in Harris County; each confirmed case usually means about five times more actual cases.

Even though people are now starting to get it with face masks and social distancing, we still have a raging COVID epidemic. We’re not in a position to open schools. The number of deaths continues to accelerate — more than 1,000 deaths per day in the U.S.
+++
What should that national plan do?

The closest thing we have to a national plan right now is to say, we’re going to let the individual states take the lead. They make the decisions on what needs to be done. Then the U.S, government provides some of the backup support — for FEMA, supply-chain management, and making ventilators and healthcare professionals available on an emergency basis. That’s not working. No. 1, the states just don’t have the epidemiological horsepower. They don’t know how to manage this epidemic.

The good professor essentially admits his thoughts on October are pie in the sky but at least he has established some sensible goals for the nation. That's far more that Trump's bunch is doing by throwing everything onto the states with no national plan.

Thanks for the OP, Nevilledog.............

[Nevilledog]

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