Texas, Texas, Texas and Covid Relaxation
Oil, Oil, Oil. It’s hard to write about Covid and Texas without starting at the basics. I’ve also held back on political commentary for weeks, but Texas drew me back in.
Oil, natural gas, and coal magnates run the state. When Texas was overcome by the deepest freeze, but still the third in a decade, who do Governor Greg Abbott and Senator Ted Cruz blame for cage-free power losses – wind mills and solar renewables. Texas lets the power companies run free, isolates it grid to avoid federal regulations, while muttering that the free market will protect it. The result is users getting charged thousands of dollars a day, with no relief that has been publicized yet.
What does this have to do with Covid? Did Governor Abbott just free all of Texas from Covid restrictions to escape the public focus and wrath on his inability to handle the freezing pipes and weeks of deprivation?
Did their Senator Cruz take the Cancun Cruise to deflect attention for his leading role in the Senate vote counting block that led to the January 6 insurrection?
The Governor actually did include a disclaimer that people would rely on their own responsibility for their actions on the Covid pandemic. What? They just suggested what I wrote on distraction on CNN with Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon. I will continue anyway. I hope that restaurants also continue outside dining and takeout. I hope that the Bible Belt churches still continue parking lot and internet services, for those who do not want to crowd into infectathons. I can’t blame it all on Texas, since it was California churches that got hands-off rulings from the Supreme Court.
The IHME projections have a worst case scenario, a red line on their graphs, which I have never used, since it is unreasonable. But it isn’t even as unreasonable as the Texas’ Governor’s complete abolition of required protocols. IHME only considers it worst if masking declines a month after getting vaccinated, and if mobility at 22% reduction now slowly declines to 10% reduction by June 1, as people get vaccinated. Present masking now is 77% in Texas, in agreement with the US average.
Will the immediate relaxations discourage Texans from getting vaccinations? 71% in the state are agreeable to vaccination, compared to 80% in California. IHME estimates that 13.6 million Texans will be vaccinated by June 1, out of a 29.0 million population. Although today, President Biden said all adults will now be vaccinated by June 1. We look forward to Friday when IHME can make another forecast for Texas with the latest events. Vaccinations are crucial, since they will save 14,400 lives in Texas by June 1.
The IHME current projection of February 25 predicted an additional 10,000 deaths to reach 52,000 on June 1. Going to the worst case only added 2,000 more. Going instead to 95% masking, would save 2,000 lives from the current projection.
Daily deaths average 230 a day over the last week, down from 270 a day the week before that. On June 1, IHME projects 78 deaths per day for the worst case, 31 a day for the current projection, and 15 a day for the 95% masking projection. The IHME fit for today is 188 deaths per day.
The IHME model estimates that 24% of Texans have already been infected. Of daily infections, only 45% are considered detected. Daily infections in the model current projection are 19,455 a day. The worst case has a slow decrease in March and April. Here are the daily infections at the start of the months for the Worst, Current, and 95% Masking projections.
Projection. April 1. May 1. June 1
Worst: 17,594. 13,923. 8,398
Current: 13,094. 6,170. 2,290
Masking: 8,556. 3,179. 923
Here are the IHME graphs of the estimated daily infections in the model, with the Worst projection in red, the Current projection in purple, and the 95% Masking projection in green.
The actual relaxations go into effect on March 10.
