From the Baghdad bigtexx "everything's coming up roses" daily dose of reality... The news clips include news stories, editorials and opinion columns about health and human services from major state and national media outlets. They do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the agency and may contain inaccuracies. More than 5,900 COVID-19 patients hospitalized Monday in Texas, an all-time high Fort Worth Star-Telegram Hospitalizations of patients with the novel coronavirus in Texas reached an all-time high Monday after breaking records for nearly every day the previous two weeks. Texas DSHS reported 5,913 COVID-19 patients hospitalized Monday — a jump of 416 patients from the 5,497 hospitalized Sunday. Monday, DSHS reported 4,288 new COVID-19 cases — the first time new daily cases have dropped below 5,000 since last Monday. ‘Exponential surge’ continues — 650 new coronavirus cases in Bexar County, 881 people hospitalized San Antonio Express-News San Antonio reported 650 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday as the rapid spread of the coronavirus continued to put pressure on area hospitals and officials warned against large gatherings ahead of the Fourth of July weekend. No new deaths were reported, leaving Bexar County’s total at 109. The confirmed new cases brought the county’s total to 10,797. Virtually every statistic related to the virus is heading in the wrong direction. Austin shatters 3-day record for number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases KVUE-TV Austin A record daily high of 728 new cases was reported Saturday, with 636 new cases reported Sunday and 508 more reported Monday. Based on a 14-day moving average, the number of virus infections has increased 230%, while testing is up 57%, based on a KVUE data analysis. Daily hospital admissions in Austin have now risen 53.4% over the past 14 days, with 68 people hospitalized, 121 in ICU and 68 on ventilators as of Monday. Corpus Christi's State Supported Living Center hit hard by COVID-19 Corpus Christi Caller-Times An outbreak at Corpus Christi’s State Supported Living Center has sickened at least 40 people, according to local officials. In all, 22 residents and 22 staff were reported as testing positive. The center – which has about 850 staff and 190 residents – was among 23 state-run facilities, to include living centers and psychiatric hospitals, that recently underwent mass testing. 'We were getting panicked calls': After 100% capacity debacle, Houston hospitals make reporting changes KHOU - Houston Daily cases, hospitalizations, and the positivity rate are all up. In the midst of that troubling news, Houston made national headlines when the Texas Medical Center’s online dashboard showed intensive care units at 100% capacity. Over the weekend, the heads of Houston’s top hospitals came together to reformat how they present information. One of the new graphics shows ICU bed capacity and occupancy in three phases, with room to expand at each phase. Texas city and county leaders ask Gov. Greg Abbott for authority to implement local stay-at-home orders Texas Tribune Officials in Harris, Bexar, Dallas and Travis counties have either called on or reached out to the governor in recent days, expressing a desire to implement local restrictions for their regions and, in some cases, stressing concerns about hospital capacity. Local governments across the state implemented stay-at-home orders to varying degrees in March before the governor issued a statewide directive at the beginning of April, which has expired. Democrats urge Gov. Abbott to let Texas cities, counties issue mandatory stay-at-home orders Houston Chronicle City and county leaders want Gov. Abbott to let them issue mandatory stay-at-home orders again as the coronavirus outbreak continues. Eight Democrats in Congress, meanwhile, issued a joint statement warning that the Fourth of July weekend is approaching and there are no mandates that Texans wear face coverings in public, while many beaches remain open and gatherings up to 100 people are still permitted under the governor’s current orders. Austin ‘on the verge’ of new stay-home orders, health official says Austin American-Statesman Interim Austin-Travis County Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott told members of the Austin City Council on Monday that he was “on the verge” of recommending a return to a more expansive economic shutdown if the community fails to slow the spread of the virus. It’s unclear how such an order could materialize, as questions remain over what authority local governments have to implement more austere measures. Gov. Abbott: State looking at where people are catching COVID-19 to determine future restrictions KXAN-TV - Austin As COVID-19 cases surge across Texas and reopenings of some businesses have been put on pause, Gov. Abbott says future restrictions for the state will be determined, in part, by places or activities which are leading people to catch the disease. Abbott said his order that closed bars and limited restaurant capacity to 50% came about because “so many people who were testing positive for COVID-19 were contracting it in bar-type settings.” Recovered from COVID-19? Your plasma donation is urgently needed amid Texas' spike in cases KVUE-TV Austin Plasma donations are helping hospitalized coronavirus patients, and We Are Blood along with the Dell Medical School are asking for recovered COVID-19 patients to donate as Texas sees a spike in cases. We Are Blood say the plasma is being transfused like a regular blood transfusion and the hope is that the plasma donation possessing the antibodies will be used by the patient's body to fight off COVID-19. It's known as convalescent plasma.
Interesting notes from Northern California. https://www.sfgate.com/news/editors...ifornia-coronavirus-spread-COVID-15374623.php "Nearly all of new cases are coming from known cases, either household members, extended family, or people who made visits to the infected person," Yuba County spokesperson Russ Brown said. "Being in close settings where you don’t have safeguards because you're around people you know — that really opens it up to risks and that’s what we're seeing here." I would think bars and some restaurants would be similar environments, as well as some poorly ventilated workplaces.
btw, Yuba County is way out in the sticks in northern California (lived there for a few years). The biggest city is Yuba City with less than 65,000 people and the largest employers are Beale Air Force Base and Sunsweet. I think Montgomery County is bigger. And its a very conservative part of CA.
The study seems to take a 10k foot view, if you will, basing their result on how much net social distancing occurred. I would be interested to also see studies on not the net result, but the actual impact of the protests - as I think that would be useful data for re-opening (large gathering without physical distancing with X% masks yield ....)
Those hospitalizations for covid patients are high but I have more great news. Ozark has been renewed for its 4th and final season. Stuff that the media isn't talking about!
The way I'm reading this is that MN other than the protest has done a good job with social distancing and other measures so events like mass protests haven't changed things much. There may be some truth to that but that would rule out the idea that there are super spreaders individual or events. It seems unlikely that of all the people at the protests there wouldn't be at least a few super spreaders but maybe that just happened to be the case and superspreaders are rarer than we think they are.
I'm reading that he's concerned that hospital staff could get infected leading to a shortage of staff.
He's saying a concern to watch for is not the # of beds, but having enough staff to actually use all the beds. It's a real concern that's ignored when talking about hospital capacity - capacity is limited not by beds, but by whatever the first necessary resource is that runs out (beds, staff, PPE, medicine, etc). In NY, we had thousands of nurses/doctors/etc come in from all over the country to help staff their hospitals, meaning they ran out of people before they ran out of space.
Of course not... better to decide after hearing from sean hannity, tucker carlson, and diamond & silk...
The studies show that it's likely a bunch of protesters would get infected, but specifically during the weekends of the protests, other people stayed home more than their normal (presumably to avoid the chaos). Thus, the net amount of people getting infected was about the same. Lots of people were on the streets and getting infected a bit. Lots of other people were NOT in restaurants and bars and such, getting infected much less since those are primary places of spread.
