Harris County Public Health reported a 50% increase in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hour period, up by 40 cases from 79 to 119 in the official Harris County count. You can find this information online at this link: http://publichealth.harriscountytx.gov/Resources/2019-Novel-Coronavirus.
I broke that data down into several groups. Click on the charts to enlarge. The first chart is for the four quadrants of the county.
| Quadrant | Cases |
|---|---|
| NE | 23 |
| NW | 76 |
| SE | 9 |
| SW | 11 |
Next by gender:
| Female | 58 |
|---|---|
| Maie | 61 |
Next by age group:
| 0-9 | 2 |
|---|---|
| 10-19 | 1 |
| 20-29 | 22 |
| 30-39 | 20 |
| 40-49 | 29 |
| 50-59 | 25 |
| 60-69 | 14 |
| 70-79 | 4 |
| 80-89 | 2 |
Lastly by status for recovered and deceased and how the remaining active cases contracted the coronavirus.
| Community spread | 56 |
|---|---|
| Domestic travel | 1 |
| Exposure to confirmed case | 15 |
| Pending investigation | 18 |
| Travel related | 15 |
| Deceased | 1 |
| Recovered | 13 |
The State of Texas has a dashboard up showing the latest data from the Department of Health and Human Services. Click this link to see the live data: https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83.
The observant among you will see that the state is reporting 134 confirmed cases and the county 119. I raised the question of inconsistent data during a conference call with Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia. The problem with inconsistent data is that those skeptical that the coronavirus is actually a serious issue use the inconsistencies to play down the coming effects of the coronavirus. Gov. Abbott’s order requires counties to submit standardized data but there will always be a lag between various reporting agencies and news media. Commissioner Garcia is committed to making the Harris County data as current and consistent as possible.
There are a lot of things happening with the overall government response. The federal bailout on the Senate side looks to be about ready, lots of waste in that pig trough. But, you have to get votes I guess. I’m not certain what all the state is doing, even after participating in another conference call with them. They did say that over 13,000 tests have been done, which matches their dashboard, so that is good.
On Commissioner Garcia’s call with Precinct 2, the commissioner and the medical professionals on the call wanted to emphasize a few things.
- Suspend tolls during the emergency declaration AG
- Partnership with Houston to set up 150 bed quarantine shelter for homeless. Shortage of personnel to staff and shortage of supplies and PPE are slowing the planning.
- Micro business help up to $25k max forgivable loan Partnering with the HGAC
- Motion was to put $10 million into the program
- Charges low interest for 5 years but then can be forgiven
- Helps small Mom & Pop shops that do not qualify for other programs
- Must prove that the business was already running
- Enforcement – call non-emergency numbers to make people aware, leaders reinforce the necessity to follow order
- Testing site in Baytown – collaborative with federal gov’t – low on supplies – use screening process to allocate resources (link: https://checkforcorona.com/harris-county#/welcome)
- Duration of the county order – April 3rd but Commissioner Garcia intends to make a motion to extend it to 30 days
- False sense of security – for every positive case, many unrecognized – lack of access to testing, both in the community and in hospitals
On a call with Judge Hidalgo and emergency management personnel, I learned a few things.
- For every confirmed coronavirus case, an average 20-25 contacts must be tracked down
- Online screening survey – of the 24,000 screened thus far, over 75% do not need testing
- 4 drive up sites in Harris County, 250 tests per day per site, 1,000 tests per day for county
- 44 sites nationwide doing the same thing
- PPE supplies are very low
Saw a lot of people walking around the neighborhood enjoying the weather today. Neighbors are doing things with their kids that are creative – sidewalk chalking, taking portraits, cooking, etc.
Hang in there!