Posted on 06/26/2020 10:29:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
Prior studies have suggested a weak connection between the intrusive government measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 and the progression of the virus.
Texas is in the news, and not in a good way, over an increase in COVID-19 cases over the past four weeks. There’s quite a bit of speculation over why the virus, which largely bypassed the Lone Star State until the end of May, suddenly seemed to become more pernicious.
Some point to a lack of enforcement for social distancing measures and masks. Yet California, a state of similar size and demographics, where Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom was far more aggressive in pursuing a shutdown than Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, has seen a case increase of about the same magnitude, which even started at about the same time as Texas.
Unemployment numbers can give us a sense of how widespread the shutdowns in each state were. Since February, California’s unemployment rate jumped 12.4 percent to 16.3 percent in May, while Texas’ saw an increase of 9.5 percent to 13 percent over the same period.
Prior studies have suggested a weak connection between the intrusive government measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 and the progression of the virus, suggesting that due to its ease of transmission in certain environments, such as mass transit and residences, it will inevitably spread until a certain percentage of the population develops immunity.
Had California’s unemployment rate gone up only as much as the rate in Texas, the state would have saved about 600,000 jobs. What did California gain for this sacrifice? Perhaps not much. According to The New York Times’ interactive coronavirus site, as of June 25, California’s per capita case count is 9 percent higher than Texas’s and its per capita fatality rate is 89 percent higher than in Texas.
Of course, both states pale in comparison to the losses in New York, where Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s deadly misstep of placing seniors with active cases of the virus into nursing homes to clear space in hospitals resulted in tens of thousands of additional deaths. New York’s per capita case count remains about four times higher than that in either California or Texas, and its fatality rate is 11 times greater than California’s and a staggering 21 times greater than Texas. While the trends are troubling in America’s two most-populous states, due to several factors, they aren’t likely to get close to, much less exceed, New York’s debacle.
The intense focus by the media and the political left on largely conservative states where the virus toll is mounting (from a low base) plays into the very human, and often irrational, perception of risk. If the number of cases goes from 10 to 20, that’s a doubling, and the public gasps. Yet if the number of cases goes from 1,000 to 1,100, we collectively yawn.
Similarly, we don’t do well with unseen but very real effects, as observed by French economist Frédéric Bastiat in 1850. To list one example, COVID-19 largely spares school-age children its most harmful effects, meaning measures like cancelling school and disrupting friendships may lead to far greater losses from suicide than the virus could ever threaten. Further, the lost months and years of education will visit negative consequences on the COVID generation for the remainder of their lives. But those consequences are unseen—for now.
Returning to Texas, there are four reasons frequently given for the recent increase in cases: Abbott and those liberty-loving Texans opened up too soon (that California surged while locked down more than Texas doesn’t help this argument); cases appeared to mount just after Memorial Day, when many people visited friends and relatives; cases increased among the young after large protests that started about a week after Memorial Day, and; large numbers of infected Mexicans and Central Americans are fleeing across the southern border as Mexico has forgone any coherent COVID response, leaving its already weak medical system wholly unprepared to cope.
Regardless of the reasons for the virus’ increased prevalence in Texas—something likely unavoidable until enough people develop immunity, whether through catching it or by being vaccinated once a vaccine is developed and proven—the state is now dealing with an increase in hospitalizations. This means we’re hearing calls for Abbott to roll back the state’s economic and social opening.
Unfortunately, the rhetoric over Texas’ hospital capacity is clouded by a lack of understanding and, in all too many cases, a ghoulish partisan glee.
The first thing to understand about hospitals is that they are businesses and if they don’t generate more income than expenses, they are forced to lay off doctors and nurses, forego the acquisition of costly but life-saving medical equipment, and eventually close their doors. This was seen all over America a few months ago when hospitals were directed to cut back on “elective” procedures to make way for an expected wave of coronavirus patients that, with the exception of some states in the Northeast, thankfully never materialized. This led to a round of layoffs as hospitals nationwide struggled with a plunge in revenue.
The second factor to consider is that Abbott’s COVID-19 response team, lead by former state representative and anesthesiologist Dr. John Zerwas, put together a flexible five-phase system to expand hospital bed, ICU bed, and ventilator capacity as needed. This advance work led to an 89 percent increase in available capacity from the onset of the virus to mid-June.
Lastly, as Texas’ regional hospital systems and public health officials saw the immediate threat from the virus recede in May, the number of critical “elective” procedures rose, as people with heart disease, breast cancer, colon cancer, and other life-threatening conditions, sought treatment—in too many cases, dangerously delayed.
Thus, uninformed critics of Texas—or outright partisan scaremongers—claimed in recent days that Houston’s medical system was about to be overrun by virus patients, pointing to the slender margins of the region’s ICU capacity, with 95 percent of the beds full. The critics failed to note two rather important factors.
As an example, at the Texas Medical Center, one of Houston’s largest hospital networks, some 70 percent of the available ICU beds as of June 23 were taken by non-COVID patients, with 27 percent treating patients suffering from the virus and 3 percent of the beds available. However, that total ICU number was without activating the system’s “sustainable surge” capacity, which would quickly add another 373 beds—more than the 362 beds currently being used by virus patients.
Further, as virus cases are admitted to the hospital system, “elective” patients can be cycled out as they recover and elective procedures can be scaled back to make more room. If the Texas Medical Center receives even more COVID patients, they can activate their “unsustainable surge” capacity, adding another 504 beds for a total of 2,207 beds in a system currently treating 362 COVID patients—a six-fold increase in ICU capacity currently treating virus patients. The misinformation got so bad that the leaders of Houston’s hospital network issued a statement on Thursday assuring Houstonians that they had ample capacity to handle the expected increases in COVID-19 patients.
The focus on hospitalizations and more serious ICU or ventilator use misses a few other vital factors. First, our understanding of the virus and how to treat it has improved significantly over the past few months.
We know to lay patients prone if they are having breathing difficulty, avoiding use of ventilators as much as possible. We now have a wider array of treatments that appear to improve the chances for recovery. And, due to increased testing, a larger share of people who were previously not likely to be hospitalized are now being placed under observation.
Further, the number of patients receiving treatment might be higher for the simple reason that hospitals have been incentivized to take them due to the 20 percent financial incentive passed by Congress for treating Medicare patients with COVID-19, with many insurance companies joining in after being pressured by governors.
This leads to one statistic that, in its finality, is the true arbiter of how hard a state is being hit by COVID-19: fatalities. In this grim statistic, Texas is still doing relatively well, although time will tell, as deaths typically lag cases and hospitalizations by six to nine days.
Even so, the running seven-day average of deaths in Texas has been trending down since it first peaked in late April. In New York City, 584 people lost their lives to the virus on April 7. New York City has 28 percent of Texas population. Texas’s worst day of fatalities was 58 on May 14—less than one-tenth New York’s grim toll with more than three times the population.
Looking at New York state, with 65 percent of Texas’ population, Texas would have to suffer 47,700 fatalities to reach the Empire State’s per capita death toll. As of June 25, Texas had lost 2, 296 of its residents to COVID-19.
Is the virus spreading in Texas? Yes. Is it time for panic? No.
The protestors of the 60s are The Establishment today.
I will have to go back and look.
It could have been Vice President Pence comments about under 35 and Dr. Fauci comments that lead me to believe this. I think they thank them for being tested. I will have to watch from start to finish. They might have dance around it without saying it.
Thanks for the video link I was listening to them on SiriusXM.
We do have a link in Greenville SC WYFF..
In my area SC they are linking the protest to the spike. They are asking other protesters to come in for testing.
Why the heck has Abbott reversed? I’m boiling mad at this. Texas was supposed to be back at 100% on July 4.
Seems like we have more cases since the masks requirements started. Could wearing masks have something to do with it? Who knows.
I understand that the Governor has targeted just certain areas in East Texas that have problems.
That, I think, was the plan. Open and see what happens and if certain areas require special attention, they will get it.
That made me feel better. I hope it’s true.
Some sanity.
The Leftists thrilling Death rate causing American economic/business shut down was exacerbated by the giddy Leftists hatred for releasing the already known-to-be-safe, Hydroxychloripine, for stopping the virus dead in its tracks because it slowed the Lefties thrilling Death rate..
Now, already, there are several treatment options available that work and others in trials.
Media doesn’t want us to realize this is just one more nasty flu that typically, as with all the others, is very risky to elders and those with serious underlying pathologies.
Said it before and I’ll say it again
“If you didn’t Die from Covid in 2020... You didn’t Die”
(in other words Twenty 9mm bullets into your Skull, Cause of Death = Covid)
Remember, a lot of the so-called hospitalizations are for observation and to milk the Federal Government for the bill as opposed to private health carriers. Although Ca., NY, and a couple of other states are claiming lower infection rates, they have killed off large parts of their vulnerable populations already and many are not even bothering to test.
That would be great, but unlikely, unfortunately.
Along those lines though; My wife and I were tested for COVID-19 anti-bodies this morning in Northern NJ in the NY metropolitan area. We both tested negative, unfortunately. I really wanted to have the anti-bodies, but the result was not a surprise since I haven't felt sick from anything in several years.
The nurse practitioner was a sweet lady who appeared to be in her late 60's at least. As we were waiting for the results (which only took about 10 minutes), she was regurgitating the talking points about the increase in cases, especially among the young, and I engaged her a bit about the folly of the one-size-fits-all lockdown policy for something that is fatal, primarily, to a small percentage of the population, and how we should be seeking herd immunity for the other 99% of people.
She repeated the talking point about the spike in cases in other states, especially among the younger set, and said something about "everybody" now wanting to come to NY and NJ because it was "safer". I politely countered with the statement that I cannot get out of NJ fast enough, but that was the case even before all this nonsense. This lady is obviously not familiar with the interstate migration data that shows NJ and NY losing residents to other states at a significant rate.
I wasn't going to get into a back-and-forth on the difference between cases and deaths or how an increase in cases actually means a reduced fatality rate. That would have been pointless.
Everyone has their media-led talking points and no amount of data or facts will convince them otherwise.
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DO Hospitals/Doctors STILL get the 15% Bonus (Fees they can charge the government) for handling a ‘WUFLU’ case ???
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Spreading or just NOW tested ??
Need actual statistics about EFFECT.
Eventually ‘detected’ will be most people - ARE these cases that REQUIRE hospitalization ????
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Media GIN-ing up more panic and crisis.
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Yes, it is very magical! It allows them to keep the fear ginned up and the farce going strong. More testing = higher numbers = more fear = more control from the nanny state.
Yes, it is very magical! It allows them to keep the fear ginned up and the farce going strong.
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Working quite well in Houston from what I hear. Brother in Houston told me his wife just returned from HEB and it is very much like the first day this “pandemic” was announced. Folks running around mad like stampeding cattle, shelves getting empty again. Here we go.
Thanks Abott, “peaceful protestors”, and all ya’ll.
Yep I read where the gov. of NC just issued a mandate that all
must wear mask when out in public now. In the past it was optional.
Only 29 dead in Texas today...why all the hysteria???
Exactly...they are drawing this coronacold out as long as they can on purpose.
Why is no one “contact tracing” these cases. Personally I chalk it up to young people being out and about without fear, because the reality is they really have very little to fear. The largest increase in positives is people under 40. They may get sick, maybe even very sick, but few will die.
Oh yeah and people crossing the border, legally and illegally. Can’t say that aloud though. Racist dontcha know.
Conservative Texans should contact Abbotts’ office (https://gov.texas.gov/contact) and voice your opinion. The hotspots for Texas are the Progressive Ghettos and not the other approximately 200 counties. Express your opinion that these coming lockdowns and restrictions are not backed by facts and only affect limited areas.
As a reminder, the liberal media is COUNTING on your knee jerk reaction......rather than looking at ALL the numbers!
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