Keegan99 said:

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And Texas' "secret" is most likely low density, no mass transit, and a huge portion of our citizens living in freestanding homes.

The density of Houston and Dallas relative to large coastal cities / Chicago isn't comparable.

Houston is 3.5k / mi^2.
Dallas is 3.8k

NYC? 26k (and it would be much higher if not for Staten Island)
San Francisco 18.8k
Miami? 12.5k
Chicago? 12.0k
Philly? 11.2k.
DC 10.5k
Los Angeles? 7.5k


Even urbanites in Texas have a LOT more space than those elsewhere.

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I agree those factors will help keep our numbers lower. But, only testing <0.3% of the population keeps them low, too.

Houston thumbing their noses at the other major metros with COVID

This

IrishTxAggie said:

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We've been in a stay at home for three weeks now. Pretty sure the cases would've popped up by now.

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Some people have been staying at home. This is not a Korean lockdown.

Ag_07 said:

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This is gonna go down a road I don't want this thread to go down.

To me if you're not testing every single person you'll always be not testing enough.

It's all about the stress on the system. Regardless of testing if the hospital system is holding up alright then all good.

Keep staying home. Keep social distancing. Keep the curve flattened. Let this thing run its course and keep the stress off the system. That's what the end goal is.

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I don't disagree. You can't test everyone.

I do wish we had a more accurate/up to date number of positive cases.

But, in the absence of that, I agree with your sentiment. That story about the church just really ticked me off.

They explained the 400 positive cases as a backlog with one of the testing companies. They also said that the last big bump was the same thing with a different company. This is similar to the reason why there was exponential growth in positive tests was because there was an exponential growth in testing. Now that we have essentially ferreted out the existing cases we are a more or less linear growth. The numbers just aren't smooth since they are getting reported back to the city and state in groups. If you look at it holistically across multiple days it smooths out.

nm, Karen's gonna Karen

Also, how many people do you want to test? We have already done 2 million tests and still are doing exponentially more each day. We are doing far and away more testing that any other country. Yes, it took a bit to get started, but we are testing more each day that tested positive in the entire 18 months of the swine flu epidemic in the US. The testing is only being driven because it provides daily data for the news organizations to put a tally on the side of your screen. The testing doesn't tell you much because you should just stay home. It doesn't really change treatment.

FHKChE07 said:

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Also, how many people do you want to test? We have already done 2 million tests and still are doing exponentially more each day. We are doing far and away more testing that any other country. Yes, it took a bit to get started, but we are testing more each day that tested positive in the entire 18 months of the swine flu epidemic in the US. The testing is only being driven because it provides daily data for the news organizations to put a tally on the side of your screen. The testing doesn't tell you much because you should just stay home. It doesn't really change treatment.

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Initially, I agreed with you - what difference does testing make if, unless you get really sick, the "cure" is to stay home and sweat it out?

But it's going to be trends that show a decrease in positive tests, hospital admissions, and deaths that ultimately support decisions to start getting things back to normal and going back to work. You can't make those decisions with any confidence without test results.

And as far as the presser goes, I heard everything you said above about the reasons for the jump in testing.

What I didn't hear is anyone saying they are confident that these two-week delays in testing are being minimized. Maybe I missed it? But at this point, I wouldn't be surprised to see another jump in two weeks.

My concern is that we are making decisions in the absence of sufficient evidence. The decision, whether it be to tell people to stay home or that it's safe to go out, is irrelevant.

at this point in the epidemic with a lockdown in place for the rest of the month, the testing volume is almost immaterial

the hospitalizations are the relevant finding, because that's what's driving the shutdown

of course, after you break the epidemic and start to lift the lockdown, that's when testing volume becomes critical again

we missed our window for that in February. we could certainly **** around and do it again when this lockdown lifts.

cone said:

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at this point in the epidemic with a lockdown in place for the rest of the month, the testing volume is almost immaterial

the hospitalizations are the relevant finding, because that's what's driving the shutdown

of course, after you break the epidemic and start to lift the lockdown, that's when testing volume becomes critical again

we missed our window for that in February. we could certainly **** around and do it again when this lockdown lifts.

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Yep, that's exactly my point. We didn't really have evidence to support the lockdown (not here, anyway - it came from Washington State and Italy), and I don't see us really gathering the solid evidence we need to lift it. Hopefully, I'll be wrong about that.

Also, it would be a lot easier to evaluate what is really going on if they would just publish the damn testing numbers. Cases by zip code in Harris County (like Montgomery County is going) would be helpful, too. Houston/Harris County is so huge, it would be helpful to know if there are any localized outbreaks.

And it isn't a consistent 2 week delay because there are like 7 different tests. There are private companies doing things, there are all the public testing options, there are hospitals doing tests and they are required to report positives to the health department in under 24 hours. But they aren't required to report on negative tests. That is why we don't have detailed info on a positive test rate.

FHKChE07 said:

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And it isn't a consistent 2 week delay because there are like 7 different tests. There are private companies doing things, there are all the public testing options, there are hospitals doing tests and they are required to report positives to the health department in under 24 hours. But they aren't required to report on negative tests. That is why we don't have detailed info on a positive test rate.

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Testing sites should be keeping track of how many total tests they are collecting. The state knows how many tests have been performed. Montgomery County has intermittently reported number of tests performed. It shouldn't be that hard.

I do think the average person probably doesn't care/understand why total number of tests performed is important, though. So agencies probably think "why bother?" It just means more work.

I was just repeating what the health department guy said at one of his briefings. He said that they don't get reported anything but positive tests unless they are administered by the city.

FHKChE07 said:

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I was just repeating what the health department guy said at one of his briefings. He said that they don't get reported anything but positive tests unless they are administered by the city.

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I don't remember seeing this article when it first came out (it's from March 12), but Houston, Harris Co, and Fort Bend Co officials made the conscious decision to not release the total number of tests performed.

https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/only-one-houston-area-county-will-release-number-of-covid-19-tests-performed/285-df63b4aa-381a-4cac-bcf9-cfc754ce4dad

Quote:

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Health departments in Harris County, Houston and Fort Bend County released a statement saying they will not disclose the number of patients they have tested until this point, claiming the information would "lead to misinformation, which can create unnecessary, often confused, alarmed public reaction."

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I imagine private tests are harder to track. In that article, Montgomery Co. said they aren't tracking those.

I would also bet that most of the tests are private and not from the public testing centers.

FHKChE07 said:

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I would also bet that most of the tests are private and not from the public testing centers.

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Based on the state-reported public:private, I think that's a good bet. The information is out there, though. If the state has the numbers, there has to be zip codes associated with them.

cajunaggie08 said:

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David_Puddy said:

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I know it definitely won't happen, but I'm hoping than post 4/30 the Trump leaves it up to the individual governors to use the data to determine whether businesses can open back up and people can get back to work. Don't want NYC being like the one bad apple in the class that makes the other 50 students have to sit in time out because of them.

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Short of locking the Tri-state area down and not letting anyone in or out, how do you stop it from spreading back out to the rest of the states? At least we are more aware now and local authorities will be much more likely to lock down and isolate patient 0.2. I just dont know what point is the responsible point to return to a semi-normal. I get the idea of leaving it up to individual states as not are all hit as hard as NYC or New Orleans. However, its not like we have closed borders either. We're a interconnected country full of mixing and mingling. If its done too early, we're back to square 1 and all back on lockdown. If its done too late, how many wont have a job to return to. I dont know what the right answer is and i'm not sure anyone else does either at this point.

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Impose a travel ban on NY. No flights in or out unless critical personnel. Treat them like essentially the entire country of Italy. You would hear *****ing like no other, but I think it would prove effective.

IrishTxAggie said:

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David_Puddy said:

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I know it definitely won't happen, but I'm hoping than post 4/30 the Trump leaves it up to the individual governors to use the data to determine whether businesses can open back up and people can get back to work. Don't want NYC being like the one bad apple in the class that makes the other 50 students have to sit in time out because of them.

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It is up to the governors now. Trump hasn't mandated any of the stay at home policies. He's given a program and left it to the governors to adopt individually

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I know he has, but every state has shut down non essential businesses until the end of this month from orders from the federal government. I'm saying that Trump should reassess things a week or two before the month is over and put things entirely in the state governors hands on slowly getting people back to work and opening businesses up. I think it's ridiculous that the Dallas country judge already extended this thing out almost another month without accounting any of April's data. If the curve flattens significantly, I think a stay at home order for an additional 3 weeks is unnecessary. I guess he could always lift the order, but why put that fear into the Dallas people's minds without waiting to see what the mid to late month data shows? In before the "Dallas sucks" crowd.....just using them as an example. With the improper mask wearing dumbasses that are governing Houston, at least I can give them credit for 1 thing, as to not following Dallas' lead........yet

Except a lot of models and projections show that this could go on for months.

It's too soon to talk about lifting restrictions. Maybe if people had been following them all along. But that hasn't happened.

To be fair, the media screwed that story up badly. He didn't extend the stay at home order though May, just the emergency declaration. He said that gave them options an what to do, but the current stay at home still expires April 30th. Now, like you, I think it's silly to make any decisions about what things look like beyond April without more data, so we'll see what happens.

Not a lawyer but Texas Disaster Act seems to say it can't go beyond 30 days without being renewed by the Governor.

(c) A state of disaster may not continue for more than 30 days unless renewed by the governor. The legislature by law may terminate a state of disaster at any time. On termination by the legislature, the governor shall issue an executive order ending the state of disaster.

What's the difference between that and a county emergency declaration?

FNG said:

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Except a lot of models and projections show that this could go on for months.

It's too soon to talk about lifting restrictions. Maybe if people had been following them all along. But that hasn't happened.

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Which models?

The one from WA shows the peak in Texas some time next week.

Mikeyshooter said:

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FNG said:

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Except a lot of models and projections show that this could go on for months.

It's too soon to talk about lifting restrictions. Maybe if people had been following them all along. But that hasn't happened.

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Which models?

The one from WA shows the peak in Texas some time next week.

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Imperial College of London

And the peak doesn't mean we are in the clear after that.

Need to qualify "go on for months". Nothing ends an epidemic except herd immunity / vaccine, the virus mutating, or actually stamping it out by low transmission like the world did for SARS.

I think this is too infectious to stamp out like SARS - economic cost is too high. Mutation is a hope. So this ends when we get herd immunity (>30% infected) or a vaccine.

Right now we're the boy with his finger in the dike (thatswhatshesaid). To get out we need to get past the current peak, then have testing in place to try to keep the spread manageable indefinitely til we get a vaccine or herd immunity. So in some sense, yeah it goes on for months. But not like this.