Resolved: Dan Patrick is an Idiot

Why is this 28.3% positive number so numbing? More than 1 out of 4 tests coming back positive. (Was ~6% in early May)

Indicates coming spike in hospitalizations & more widespread exposure.

Hard to compare this to NY's height because there was such targeted testing early on.

— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) July 1, 2020

QED.

Another thought on Arizona's numbers: AZ, with 7 million people, is reporting as many new cases per day as the European Union, with 446 million.

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) July 1, 2020

I would like to be able to compare that to Texas; but I can't make an exact comparison.

Texas is reporting around 5500 new cases a day.  Don't even get me started on the problems of testing in Texas.  The number of people infected could be far higher than is known. The positivity rate in Houston is over 14%.  Ideally, it should be under 6%.

Our hospitals are maxed out.  The city may open an overflow facility.  Austin may open one, too.  Houston has raised it's danger level to the highest possible, urging all residents to stay home much as they were urged to do before the Governor decided everything was hunky-dory and we should all get back in the pool.

At Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston, the medical staff ran out of both space for new coronavirus patients and remdesivir to treat them. A dozen COVID-19 patients who were in need of intensive care were stuck in the emergency room. Our story: https://t.co/enIgtHuz95

— Charles Ornstein (@charlesornstein) July 1, 2020

This, as I say, is the Houston hospital people without insurance go to, because they won't be turned away.  And the light at the end of the tunnel is definitely a train:

And despite that… “To tell you the truth, what worries me is not this week, where we’re still kind of handling it,” said one exec. “I’m really worried about next week.” https://t.co/phIDCSy38T

— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) July 1, 2020

I want Dan Patrick to volunteer there, he's so gung-ho on reopening the Texas economy and so sure Dr. Fauci should be ignored.  Dan lives in Houston, he could do it easy.  The only problem is he might expose himself, and that would put a burden on more healthcare workers and expose them to his foolishness.

It's a lose-lose situation, isn't it?  And still nobody has any fuckin' idea what Dan Patrick is talking about.  Including Dan Patrick.