The Texas mystery deepens.

in #texas4 years ago

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  1. https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/10/coronavirus-testing-texas/

  2. https://www.statesman.com/news/20200811/covid-19-testing-falls-in-texas-but-spread-continues

Two news stories offer no real insights. Demand for testing has dropped off a bit in some DFW areas and Austin. But overall testing has now declined more than 50% in just the last 10 days. Meanwhile, the test % positive rate has skyrocketed to 25%...up there with the worst of Arizona during its crisis.

The "unassigned" tests mentioned in the articles are tests that are completed and the pos/neg results recorded, but not yet assigned to individual counties...so that's not the answer to this riddle. And no mention of a backlog of unreported negatives from any counties.

I've been looking for a non-ominous explanation, and I'm out. This looks like we've got a major spike in cases happening while testing is declining.

(If the epidemic was steady and we cut testing in half, we'd expect to see a significant reduction in confirmed cases. Not a 50% drop, as hospital admissions would still be testing and it's mostly the less-severe cases that would be excluded, but still, cases ought to drop 10-25% or so. Having flat case counts while testing falls 50% suggests the true case rate has climbed 10-25% in the last week and a half. That, with limited testing, would be a bad situation.)

I'd say keep an eye on the hospitalization data, but with the CDC fiasco we don't know how reliable those stats are. We may have to wait a few weeks to see the death toll. :-(

All of this while schools are reopening in person...

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