Thread by @therealarod1984

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Watching for a Texas Border Covid-19 Sequel

Last Summer, the Covid surge in the Southern states, particularly Texas, was driven by Seasonality - specifically seasonality in the Southern areas of the Hemisphere. In Texas' case - the far south counties and Mexico.

1/ THREAD

https://twitter.com/therealarod1984/status/1316060642059616258

The Border Counties along the Rio Grande comprise 9% of the total Texas population. During the Summer 2020 Wave, those counties were accounting for fatalities over 2.5X their population, nearly 25% of the entire state.

2/

Below shows the impact of the border counties to the Summer Wave as opposed to Winter 2020/2021 Wave.

Again, 9% of the population driving 25% of that first big wave. The second wave, not so much. Hench why previous chart shows Border is now just 18% of total fatalities.

3/

In addition to seasonality, the South Texas Border counties were hit so hard in the summer that there was extensive Immunity in the fall. A great website to see the differences between Texas Regions

covid-texas.csullender.com

Look at the differences between N. Texas & LRGV.

4/

This table isn't as stark as it was end of last summer. But even now, the:

* Border counties deaths per MM - 3220
* rest of TX w/o Border - 1549
* Total Texas w/ Border - 1700

This table is sorted by total Fatalities. Border counties with smaller pops up high on the list.

5/

But what about TX natural/vax immunity, some estimates have us ~70% HIT, why worry?

Mexico.

As I said all last summer, I have no issue w/ treating sick people, period. But the new Admin has relaxed the border, and it was open to the sick anyway:

/6
valleycentral.com/news/local-new…

The issue was barely covered in the media, and Gov. Abbott pretended it didn't exist. We won't forget.

But what is Mexico's HIT? How good has their vax rollout been? What about other Central American countries?

It's a complete wildcard

7/

cnn.com/2020/06/29/hea…

So we watch - cases, hospitalizations & fatalities. I can do this manually, but this site is nice.

covid-texas.csullender.com

Any "Summer 2021" wave the media wants to fear porn us with - if indeed its Mexico driven, we need to be out front with the data & call it out.

8/end