Thread by @cfishman

Just 3 states have reached the level of reporting 4,000 new coronavirus cases a day.

New York, which had days over 10,000.

New Jersey, which had 5 days over 4,000.

Illinois, which had 1 day over 4,000.

2/ That’s it — even MI, LA, MA, which had terrible early outbreaks, never hit 4,000 cases a day.

Until this week.

• California, 4 days in the last week over 4,000

• Florida, 1 day over 4,000, one over 3,800

• Texas: 2 days over 4,000, one over 3,800

3/ Three more states over 4,000 cases a day in the last week.

TX Gov. Abbott last week refused to let TX mayors impose mandatory mask rules.

Yesterday, Abbott said:

‘To state the obvious, COVID-19 is now spreading at an unacceptable rate in Texas, and it must be corralled.’

4/ Abbott stood in front of charts showing a doubling in Texas of cases, hospitalizations, and positive test rate, all since Memorial Day.

But as he described the growing crisis, Abbott took no new steps.

texastribune.org/2020/06/22/tex…

5/ Said Gov. Abbott about masks:

‘I know that some people feel that wearing a mask is inconvenient or is like an infringement of freedom, but I also know that wearing a mask will help us to keep Texas open.’

And Abbott set a benchmark for imposing new rules — another doubling.

6/ Abbott on stronger anti-virus rules:

‘If we were to experience another doubling of those numbers over the next month, that would mean we are in an urgent situation where tougher actions will be required.’

That would be TX at 8,000 cases a day and a positive rate of 18%.

7/ And what of Arizona?

Arizona has just 7 million people, small compared to FL (20m), TX (29m) and CA (39m).

But AZ is approaching 4,000 cases a day as well.

In the last week, in AZ:

1 day at 3,200 new cases
1 day at 3,100 new cases

That’s like FL at 9,000, CA at 15,000.

8/ Those 2 days in Arizona —,Fri & Sat — are more than 10% of the state’s total cases going back 100 days.

We are now running the experiment some people urged in April:

What if you just let the virus run its course?

Will people in TX, FL, CA, AZ just go about their business?

9/ Final note:

Yes: Deaths nationwide are down dramatically.

Average is now at 550 a day and it’s been 2 weeks since deaths in one day were above 1,000.

But here’s the caution: At no point have deaths not caught up with cases.

Case-death-rate in US is 5.2%.

10/ Deaths have dropped because in the wake of the stay-at-home orders, cases dropped.

And hospitals could manage sick people better.

Will this summer surge be different? Will the younger group of sick people mean deaths do not come?

11/ As with whether you can run an economy in a pandemic, we’re running a trial on the pandemic & deaths.

Let’s hope deaths never catch up.

But if you use the @washingtonpost pg below to look at deaths in AZ, CA, FL, NC, SC, TX, you’ll be nervous.

#

washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/…

I made an error here: Texas Gov. Abbott uses a wheelchair — he appeared in front of charts, but did not stand. Apologies for not knowing that.