Fall Break leads today's news on the Texas Covid-19 Trail Report for Week 83.
Look below at the poor Vaccination Doses of the past week (weekly increment of just .5%). Just when we were racing towards the "final" lap, it looks as if we have pulled over to take a pit-stop. Low numbers all over the state - many of them unchanged through the first 2 significant digits. However, my theory is that last Monday was a holiday - and the long weekend took out a slew of appointment opportunities at the beginning of the week. Figure 1 shows where we are, now pushing the 70% target milestone until after December - whatever.
No wonder, Professor Hotez is now talking about the next Surge (https://www.msnbc.com/stephanie-ruhle/watch/dr-hotez-texas-could-see-fifth-wave-of-covid-cases-around-holidays-123338309865 . However, just as MSNBC and the rest of the media looks at the state as a weird-shaped version of the Black Box, the state Covid-19 vaccination track record varies between King County (North Texas, 21% vaccinated) and Presidio (Border, just 30 shots away from 100% coverage!).
Much has been written about numbers going up in El Paso; however, a closer inspection gives the results in Figure 2
Trauma Service Area I (El Paso and surrounding Texas Counties) has been hovering at a constant level since after the Labor Day holiday weekend. This means that the number of Covid-19 patients are holding constant and it is the ICU which maxed out recently, see Figure 3.
Given that El Paso County comes in at 77% of those 12 and over fully vaccinated, it goes to show you that the Delta Variant requires a higher value to stop spread altogether. With the pre-Labor Day rush to boost the numbers, the city was able to stop the increase but something else is keeping Hospital Beds occupied despite Deaths and Recoveries.
One theory is that Travel from other parts of Texas en route to Cloudcroft and Van Horn (Blue Origin Launches) may be bringing cases to West Texas during Fall Break just like they do in other parts of the state at other times of the year (e.g. Padre Island for Spring Break). Here, New Mexico Counties bordering on El Paso County tally more than 25% of the new cases for that state https://www.krwg.org/post/new-mexico-covid-19-update-709-new-cases-totaling-262078 . On a per-population basis, these range from 19.1 (Dona Ana County) to 59.7 cases per 100k (Otero County) compared with 13.1 for El Paso County. https://www.epstrong.org/results.php
The El Paso Strong dashboard has always included data on the affect of Congregate Facilities on New Cases. Figure 4 illustrates how Detention and Elder-Care Centers factor into the challenge of reducing Covid-19 in the city. These have application to the rest of the
state and will be part of future reports as each of State's regions plateau prior to the Thanksgiving Holiday. Figure 5 shows we are in the same pattern as we were one year ago.
The difference is that we are lining out at a higher value from which Hotez's fifth surge will take off - just a theory.
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