Woke rot in Texas government schools is far more pervasive and systemic than almost anyone will admit. It goes both deep and wide. Urban, rural, and suburban. Libraries. Curriculum. Teachers. Administrators. Don’t go down that rabbit hole if you want to imagine the kids are okay. If you do any searching of your local school's library, you'll definitely find tons of weird porny graphic novels and embarrassingly cringe woke toddler books and such. But it's more than just a handful of books "slipping through the cracks," it's a relentlessly one-sided bias.

Some things never change.

In late November of 2018, San Francisco Mayor James Rolph, Jr. asserted that "strict enforcement of universal masking" in his city had cut short the usual course of Spanish Flu by weeks and prevented widespread death.

newspapers.com/clip/93507592/… SF Mayor claimed that "our people [wore masks] gladly and [were] devoutly thankful for good results."

Reality: Thousands of people were arrested for not wearing masks in San Francisco.

newspapers.com/clip/85369642/…

Recently, a Baby Boomer extended relative shared this "Do's and Don't's for Influenza Prevention" list from the November 15, 1918 edition of the Douglas Island News in Alaska, with the suggestion that this advice is somehow... good. You can find it here: newspapers.com/clip/47051883/ 1918 was a lot like 2020. A lot of folks were very willing to try out masks in response to a deadly virus (Spanish Flu was *far* worse than COVID).

Masks were mandated in very few places in 1918. The rationale for masks in 1918 was personal protection, not societal protection.

Last year in the U.S. broadly and Texas more specifically, some schools were mask-optional. Other schools forced or coerced children to wear them for hours each day, every day, often even outside during exercise.

Forced-mask schools had higher infection rates than mask-optional. In U.S. schools, staff in forced-mask schools had higher COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) infection rates than those in mask-optional schools.

Texas, from January peaks to latest data:
- COVID hospitalizations down 19.9%
- COVID patients % of capacity down 22.9%
- COVID patients % of all patients down 27.7%
- COVID patients down 21.4%
- COVID ICU patients down 17.2%
- All ICU patients down 11.7%

dshs.texas.gov/coronavirus/Co… RSV, meanwhile, is way up in Texas:

https://twitter.com/wfaa/status/1426544183880339458

Remote "learning" in 2020-21 was an abject failure in Texas school districts: tea.texas.gov/sites/default/… Divided into quartiles, the more school districts were remote rather than in-person in 2020-21, the worse they did on reading and math tests.

Although there was only one lonely, single, solitary randomized controlled trial on masks in the COVID era (in Denmark), we do have U.S. data from last year.

Turns out, the COVID results were better in mask-optional than in forced-mask schools.

https://twitter.com/WILLisms/status/1415088913757184000

The student infection rate in mask-optional schools was lower than in forced-mask schools during the past school year.

Forced-mask schools had higher infection rates in 10 out of 14 two-week periods, more dramatic peaks, and a higher average infection rate.

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.

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%

It's been another two-and-a-half weeks since we last checked in with the Texas COVID-19 numbers. So how's it going?

https://twitter.com/WILLisms/status/1379137576968327171

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.

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.

It has been 24 days since Texas "reopened 100%" and eliminated statewide mask mandates.

COVID-19 "cases," hospital patients, and ICU patients all dropped again today in Texas. With 1,250 "cases" reported today in Texas, the 7-day-average of "cases" = down 23.4% since Texas fully reopened without a statewide mask mandate.

Down 49.3% since @GregAbbott_TX announced it March 2nd.

The 7-day-average "case" level is down 87.9% from the peak back in January.