Today is April 19 and this is my Week 57 Texas Covid Report. The most important takeaway is that the whole state is in a Steady State Case Plateau Mode. This represents a change for North Texas whose negative-slope profile lasted from its Winter Surge peak during the week ending on January 10 through the week ending on 3/28 (2 weeks after State Restrictions Ended). North Texas joins the Gulf Coast whose cases took a step change from 14,000 to 2,600 after the Great Texas Freeze, then lining out between 6,000 and 7,000 confirmed cases per week since then. Hospitalizations remain stable.
The Second Takeaway is that the Panhandle Spike seen last week represents cases that were not reported earlier (Easter Holiday?). Many outlets are painting this part of the state in Red given that their averaging algorithm smooths out such data. I do not do smoothing - instead waiting to see whether the trend is real or not (see below).
Finally, no update on Pending Variants. I have emailed Texas DSHS for more information with no response. This week, Variant results were lower than in the previous three weeks. Central Texas now trails the rest of the state (25%) in % of eligible population Totally Vaccinated while the Border is out front (35%). Given the overall weekly incremental increase of 5%, we could reach what would be considered a lower limit on "herd" immunity (80%) in 11 to 12 weeks, or at the end of August.
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