It has been 91 days since @GregAbbott_TX announced that Texas would reopen "100%" with no statewide mask mandate.
At the time, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth about it. Many predictions of impending doom.
Turns out, Texas was fine.
Sure, it's the day after Memorial Day, so this will go up this week, but Texas reported 94 new "cases" today.
In the whole state.
That's the lowest since March 23.
Of 2020.
Today's 7-day average: lowest since April 7, 2020.
Back when testing hadn't really ramped up yet.
If you want to zoom out a bit, here's what the cases look like since the beginning of 2021.
I still see some arguing for continued masking and restrictions because we're "in the middle of a global pandemic!!!"
No. We aren't. It's over.
The case for been over for a while now.
The "positivity rate" is also plummeting. We haven't seen lower numbers in any of the data, going back to March 2020.
We're at all-time lows for the percentage of COVID-19 tests (molecular) coming back positive.
Texas hospital patients who also test positive for COVID-19 are at the kind of levels we saw before all incidental and asymptomatic positives began being included in the numbers in June of 2020.
Texas hospital beds occupied by people who also test positive for COVID-19: just 2.65%.
There's only one day in the data with a lower number (April 12, 2020).
The 7-day average is also rapidly approaching an all-time low.
Texas ICU patients who also test positive for COVID-19 are now at their lowest 7-day average since data collection began on April 11, 2020.
All three of the all-time lowest single-day numbers of COVID-19 ICU patients occurred in the past three days.
As far as deaths go, those trickle in over days and weeks and months (so this won't hold), but we're sitting at four straight days of zero COVID-19 deaths at the moment, and even as they get added over time, their general trend is also improving dramatically.
The 7-day average shows an initial rapid decline after Texas reopened 100% with no mask mandate, followed by a period of slow decline. The way the case/hospital/ICU numbers are currently collapsing, though, we're in store for another rapid decline.
22,268,133 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered to 12,792,216 Texans.
Vaccine uptake peaked in Texas in early April.
Note the Johnson & Johnson "pause" by the FDA/CDC. The 7-day average of vaccine doses administered has declined ever since.
The cumulative numbers hide the declining rates of daily doses administered, but as of today:
79.56% of Texans 65-and-up have received at least one dose, and 69.6% have been "fully" vaccinated.
Even with vaccine ubiquity, Texas is probably due for a mild rise in cases based on latitudinal seasonality, peaking in mid-July.
Any rise in any COVID-19 metric will likely lead to more teeth-gnashing advocacy for renewed shutdowns and mandates.
Some people will try to use the anticipated, seasonal case bump to reinstate mask mandates and delay school and cancel concerts and all the rest of it.
Don't let them.
If you're seeing people still wearing masks (or worse: forcing others to), or limiting capacity at events, or requiring hand sanitizer, or keeping stickers on the ground for distancing, or not ripping out their pointless plexiglass cages, they are truly disconnected from reality.
The only things that have bent any COVID-19 curve are seasonality and immunity.
None of the other stuff, none of the non-pharmaceutical interventions, none of the lockdowns or mandates or closures, did anything, although it may still take some time for people to accept that.
Masks have zero demonstrable benefits but many known harms.
This truth, not the crashing COVID metrics or vaccine ubiquity, should be why the neurotic mask coercion we've had over the past year should cease immediately and never, ever happen again.
46 days ago, Texas opened "100%" with no statewide mask mandate, 8 days after @GregAbbott_TX announced the new policy.
Blue checkmarks predicted the apocalypse.
It's now undeniably been long enough to declare that the apocalypse did not arrive. Instead, everything is better.
Since March 10th, when Texas reopened 100% with no statewide mask mandate...
✅Cases: DOWN 25.4%
✅Hospitalizations: DOWN 39.1%
✅% of beds used by COVID patients: DOWN 36.6%
✅% of patients that are COVID+: DOWN 35.2%
✅COVID ICU: DOWN 38.8%
✅Deaths through April 11: DOWN 70.4%
Cases (7-day statewide average per day) are:
✅Down 25.4% since Texas reopened 100% without a statewide mask mandate.
✅Down 50.6% since @GovAbbott made his announcement.
It has now been 52 days since @GovAbbott made his announcement that Texas would open on March 10th, "100%," without a statewide mask mandate.
It has been 44 days since Texas reopened 100% with no mask mandates.
The promised apocalypse has apparently been postponed yet again.
COVID-19 "cases," hospital patients, ICU patients, and deaths have all fallen in Texas in the 44 days since Texas opened 100% without a statewide mask mandate.
It has now been 26 days since March 10th, when Texas "reopened 100%" with no statewide mask mandate; it has been 34 days since @GovAbbott announced the reopening.
So far, so good.
"Cases," positivity rate, hospital and ICU patients with COVID-19, and deaths are all down.
"Cases" are noisy, bouncy, and uneven, for a variety of reasons. Holidays and three-day-weekends impact the reporting. They're a mess. But they're down since Texas reopened 100%, according to @TexasDSHS data.
Next, let's look at the seven-day-averages to get a clearer picture.
The seven-day-average of Texas "cases" of COVID-19:
-DOWN 30.5% from the day Texas "reopened 100%" with no more statewide mask mandate.
-DOWN 54% from the day @GovAbbott made his announcement.
The 7-day-average "case" level is down 87.9% from the peak back in January.
According to @TexasDSHS data, the number of patients in Texas hospitals who also tested positive for COVID-19: down 35.5% since Texas reopened "100%" without a statewide mask mandate.