Texas Cautiously Re-Opening -- Bloomberg -- May 30, 2020

Link here. I was able to access this with no paywall -- not sure why. If you hit a paywall, there are often ways to get around those paywalls.

From the linked article:

Concerns erupted a month ago that coronavirus infections could surge after the state eased social-distancing measures—in just one example, prominent Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke called the Republican governor’s plan “dangerous.” And in recent days, there’s been an uptick in reported cases, though the rate of gains over the past seven weeks has been stable at about 1,000 a day. Texans appear to have evolved from a lockdown, which they took less seriously than other states, into a middle ground that hasn’t yet led to new outbreaks.

Note: again, the writer does not mention that testing for coronavirus has increased in Texas. Tracking cases -- with no other analysis -- is probably one of the least best ways to sort this out. If one is doing more testing, and the number of new cases remains relatively unchanged or even decreases, that speaks volumes.

If one runs the numbers: if this virus first appeared in our country sometime in January, 2020, or at the latest, February, 2020, then "everyone" should have been exposed by now. If you don't agree, do you think masks alone would prevent a smallpox pandemic? If so, we have nothing to worry about. Masks will save us from biowarfare, and a/c will save us from global warming.

Back to the Texas story, the corona-virus-associated case fatality rate for:

• Harris County (Houston): deaths - 228;  population - 4.8 million;  CFR =  0.0000475 = 0.00475%
• El Paso County: deaths - 77; population - 750,000; CFR =  0.0001 = 0.01%
• El Paso / Harris County: 2.105
• twice as many deaths per capita in El Paso than Houston

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Lake Mead

Monthly check. Link here.

2020: we're doing better than 2019; and 2019, was better than 2018.

I'm just amazed at the precision of the data. Yesterday it was reported that Lake Mead dropped 0.09 feet. That's 1.08 inches. That boggles the mind that they can report it so closely.