Texas Update 2/4/21
Last night I reported that Texas cases are increasing. We are the only state with an increasing trend right now. I was incredibly curious about this, so I looked into it further…
Cases…are plateauing which is probably explaining the mixed results the past few days. This is NOT the same trend as the rest of the country. We have a state R(T)=0.97. We are decreasing transmission, but barely. And, it looks like we are on the brink of exponentially increasing if we don’t do something about it. Case increases look like they are mainly driven by Trauma Service Area (TSA) H (Lufkin R=1.41); TSA L (Belton/Killeen R=1.39); TSA M (Waco; R=1.48); TSA N (College Station/Bryan R=1.87); TSA O (Austin R= 1.23). TSA J (Midland) is doing the best so far with a R=0.52. Go Midland!
Testing…We define hotspots as a Test Positivity Rate >10% AND more than 100 daily cases per 100,000. 232 counties in Texas (out of 254 counties) are considered hot spots today.
Hospitalizations…are decreasing as a state as a whole. However, there are some areas still doing very poorly. TSA E (DFW), TSA I (El Paso), TSA S (Victoria), and TSA T (Laredo) still have more than 20% of hospitalizations due to COVID19. Laredo has more than 47%!!. The Governor loosens restrictions for areas when this reaches 15% or less. And that’s for overall hospitalizations. ICU rates still look very scary. There isn’t one area in Texas that has below 20% COVID19 cases. The highest is in TSA H (Lufkin) and TSA S (Victoria) with more than 60% of their ICU’s taken up by COVID19.
Stay vigilant, Texas. We do not want this increasing, even more so before the new variants become dominant.
Love, YLE
Data Source: from our dashboard www.texaspandemic.org