Light at the end of the tunnel for Texas.

Good news article that we're beating the curve.

If that holds up, that would be great news indeed.

Texans tend to be more prepared for disasters than others (tornado, flood, drought, and hurricane experience)
Texans are an adaptable, resilient group of people; many with personal and/or family combat history.
I think many Texans see COVID-19 as an enemy. You tell a Texan how to defeat an enemy, and we will do it.
If it's as simple as self quarantine, keeping your hands clean, wearing a mask, sterilizing surfaces, and not touching your face, well that's what we will do.

I'm not a big fan of computer models, mainly because they tend to be wrong more often than not. And it seems they are always off on the "bad" side, meaning the predictions are usually worse than the actual events. In this case, I believe this model is probably more accurate than the first one, but I wouldn't be surprised to find this one is off too.

Just be prepared for us to complain, argue, and cuss the entire time we're doing it.

Sure, but that's just healthy coping.

I would never argue with you during a crisis.

Go fetch me a towel. I've got coffee in my keyboard now, dammit.

Observed data fed into a model always helps

Thank you for posting such a positive and informed article. Good news for sure.

Wouldn't argue with that wildcat at all. Over anything. Us Texans know that self-preservation is key to survival.

Some good old texas warm weather will only help. Gonna be 90 here tomorrow but another front coming in and will be 60 and 70s for another week.

It's a glimmer of hope. It let's us know that we aren't sitting at home for nothing.

Hopefully there's some accuracy to it.

Thanks for posting!

J

I watched my neighbor shoot a squirrel out of a tree yesterday. Sat in disbelief as it ran to the next house over while he chased it down and squeezed a kill shot. Carried it away by the tail while clutching his gun with pride. #closeblinds

Squirrel is good eating!

City squirrels are just as good to eat just like the country squirrels.

I really need to get a wrist sling for the hordes of tree rats around here. They have no fear of anything but Huyana.

"All models are wrong, some models are useful."

I hope they are right. In terms of testing completed as a percentage of the population, Texas is ranked near the bottom of the list at 44th out of 50 states. It could be the warm weather that is helping as well. One would certainly think all this social distancing has to be having an impact.

Thank goodness not everyone sees it the same way as WHO official Dr. Michael Ryan who is on record yesterday of saying its time to start going in and removing sick family members from homes forcibly.

I'm not done being scared. Can we extend this longer?

In some ways Texas was fortunate in that it seemed to have more time to get ready than some of the east and west coast points of entry. By the time the feds woke up, people here had already determined what as going to happen by looking at those events and were better prepared thanks to their own ingenuity. Will be interesting to see what is the final result of the Swedish approach as they did not shut down the economy like most other countries but took care to protect those who are vulnerable. So far they seem to be no worse off. Arkansas, Iowa, and a few others have taken the same tact here. Like all, I will be glad when I can get a Whataburger under their roof.

If the social distancing is not having an impact people who came up with it should be jailed for destroying economy for nothing.

Yes, but if it does work, people who complain about it should be put in jail.

How does complaining about something they may or may not have been wrong deserve jail time? The social distancing has hurt a lot of people, if it’s ever proven it worked and couldn’t have been done any other way, then maybe we can stomach it. I don’t know if you will ever get people who may lose everything to agree it was the best way.

All the national "experts" are still saying we are farther away from our peak....we ain't seen nothing yet per those guys.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/c...an-projected/ar-BB12fhcx?ocid=spartandhp

One was an action that destroyed the economy and the other a thought crime. Inside every liberal is an authoritarian screaming to get out.

Love the Orwellian reference! 1984 should be required reading in every high school.

Models are predictions of what will happen under a given set of assumptions. Change the assumptions and the output will change. If the original model assumed that social distancing would not be in place, then the prediction would be different than if it was assumed to be in place. Neither are necessarily wrong for their assumption. I notice that my county did not update cases over the weekend and now they are included. That changes the input data. Hopefully it will end up being much better than originally thought.

And then some of the complainers can get back to their toys like fuzzy seats and fancy accessories for their pickup. Hopefully they are a 17 yo on here while staying home from school. Otherwise they are way too immature for 18 yo upward.

The models were wrong and now the crawfishing contains insults for those who were proven right.

So let's go trash the economy over "assumptions"....sounds like a solid plan.

Donothin is retired. His life didn't change although he gets an extra $1,200 for his effort. He's probably upset the next round of checks might not happen..

Not really Macho Man. I have no idea if I will get the $1,200 or not but it will be a small amount relative to my income, but even so I will not go spend it on seat upgrades and a plate underneath my pickup like would be appropriate for a 16-17 yo, but really immature for anyone older. Grow up.

Any tactical retreat involves firing at those in pursuit.

Models are based on the best information at the time and usually are updated as information develops. Not sure what is going on here but it is not unusual for different modelers to have different outcomes. It is way too early to decide if the latest model is more accurate than the earlier one. And it is entirely possible that the initial model underestimated the effect of social distancing.

And, yes they are based on a set of assumptions when there is nothing better. Otherwise you are left with not being proactive. The models are updated as data becomes available. Looking for absolutes is not very realistic at the outset of a problem.

If current downturns continue rates wise its gonna be interesting to hear the spin on some of the decisions. Make no mistake though people that were once all for a national lockdown will suddenly get amnesia and start talking about how we should have managed the healthcare concerns with the economy simultaneously. Just wait. Its coming.

If early models are the basis to cause everything to be so knee jerk but in the last 4 weeks models AND results have shown a much lesser impact then surely it makes sense to look at possibly reevaluating those initial actions a bit and making reasonable changes? As I stated its odd how all those in favor of a national lockdown or an unspecified amount of time are saying without it then the numbers will be worse but then the results over that 4 weeks are showing differently.
I'm sorry but if your margin of error can go from millions and millions in the US dead to currently less than 90,000 this year dead then someone did some serious miscalculating.

Gone also are the cries that we are another Italy or Spain all of a sudden too.

Pretty much in line with flu deaths.

Yep, and there's already a lot of this going on.

It’s less of a tactical retreat and more of a full on surrender monkey style French army retreat

That crawdad is a lucky sob, the virus hit smack dab in the middle of mud bug season

It ain't slowin' em down down here. $2.29/lb boiled. I know it's messed up y'all though, that sucks. Thought about an outdoor boil and curbside pickup?

32 lb sack of live is $65 some places. Want me to load 20 sacks in a kiddie pool in the back of my truck and meet you in Natchitoches?

Yes, with 1500+ people dead just so far today from the virus, I imagine there are a bunch of folks on this forum that need to be doing some serious crawfishing. Those who said social distancing was not necessary. Those who said this whole thing was a hoax. Those who said this thing was no worse than the regular flu. All those people should be eating a big pile of crow.

Today 4/7/20.
Who's opinion has been proven right with what we know today, IYO of course.

The task force said this week would be a rough week but we should be over the hump after this. I believed them so today and this week will be no surprise. They also said to expect more cases confirmed as testing ramps up and not to panic. I trust them on that as well. You bet I am happy the death toll is WAY under the projections...yours included. Looks like things may get on track sooner than later. We are nowhere near the exponential doomsday death tolls that were kicked out by many and that is a reason to have hope we are gonna keep seeing numbers improve especially the death rate. Few tout that the recovery rate lags a bit too and we should see it rise a lot more in the coming days too.

Meanwhile, France's mortality rate is 3 times that of ours.

This thing makes absolutely no sense at all.

I never put out a death toll projection, other than to say at some point this week I expected it to exceed 2,000 in a single day. So it's not my estimate you are referencing. The doomsday numbers that were flying around were folks arguing it could get seriously bad if we did nothing.

I too hope we are seeing positive signs here. If we could get back to normal tomorrow and I had to eat a bowl of crow for that to happen, I'd say LOAD me up.

Neither side has proven right or wrong with any certainty quite yet. The projections initially were pretty inflated though. That much is a fact.

Any large projection you saw was if we did nothing. Since virtually every state did something, those projections are if then statements that never came to fruition. 99% of the arguing that has taken place on this forum in the past two weeks has been tied to the decision to shut down. Some folks arguing that was wise, because if we didn't the death toll could be very high. Others arguing if we did the economic toll could be very high. As far as I can tell most people have been right except the guys arguing the whole thing was a hoax.

Projections were made on what the numbers might be if we didn't control the spread and now they're based on what is happening in real time. Pretty simple. More bonafide data you have the closer your projections.

absolutely

No offense but i do not need you to explain to me what I saw or how to digest it....I have followed this from early on and have spent a good amount of time looking at and comparing models. I know what I have seen, read and heard with my own eyes and ears. Not trying to be rude but I just do not feel you are in a position of knowledge in this situation to "teach" me about it. You are digesting what you are seeing same as anyone else. We both have opinions and that is all they are. There have been multiple projections with all types of scenarios. Many went scorched Earth, inflated the numbers and went for the scare tactic mentality. Sadly a lot of actions were based on little to no information. Maybe its time to reevaluate some things?
I have watched the Task Force speak and seen the entire news conference word for word then see many articles posted minutes later totally twisting what they just stated. Its almost insane seeing this happen and then people run with it as fact when their words get twisted.

Again, you cannot go from projections of millions and millions to 400,000 to 240,000 to 100,00 to 93,000 to 81,000 in a week or two and expect for the US citizenship to continue to trust some of these projections. It really points to the the real possibility now that we probably could have kept people working and implemented social distancing work policies and still be pretty close to where we are now. Economy better off, healthcare limits still being respected and maintained etc.

I cannot think of a more vocal all knowing coronavirus expect on this site. No offence. Just stating my observations. You've put out more predictions than Nostradamus.

There fixed it for you. Plus those were all correct.

No offense, but I'm not sure what you don't understand Mark. Trump and Trumps experts said, "If we don't do these things millions could die." We did the things and millions didn't die. So I'm not sure what the issue here is. They were if then statements and you are completely ignoring the if. That matters.

Plus I think just about everyone has been extraordinarily clear on the limitations of models. Models are based on inputs, we still don't have a great sense of what those inputs are. (R0, mortality rate, hospitalization rate, total case prevalence, ICU Rate, etc...)

That is the beauty of it...you do not have to be sure of how I understand it....it is up to me to form my own opinions on it and from what I have seen "if" was not always used in all of these projections. There is no way you can deny you have been one of the leaders in pushing the projections with the higher death rates on here since this has started. You have also taken it upon yourself to be the "teacher" of all things COVID-19 on here to the point of making sure many positive type posts in regards to the virus get a dose of doom and gloom and fear. You are all about numbers, many of us get that but at the end of the day all many of us have said since day one is we had faith and hope that the numbers would be way less. We are seeing more evidence of that now. Its a good thing. No one is saying its over but if things stay like they are trending then we need a serious reevaluation of how we are dealing with this on many levels and start using that data to move forward rather than knee jerk reactions and scare tactics.

I'll have to cordially disagree sir, with the first half of your paragraph. I do not think I've pushed doom and gloom. I think I've pushed reality, which is a 1-2.5% death rate, which spikes when hospitals get overwhelmed. If that's doom and gloom, then I guess I'm guilty as charged. I've pushed caution until we better understand the beast. I've pushed back on folks who've argued this is a hoax. I've tried to be very careful not to put out death toll projections and case count projections, although I may have foolishly done a time or two.

I'll agree 100% I've been vocal on this. But I also think I've been a realist. I also think I've tried to be positive in spots where ever I saw something that might warrant it. If you've kept up with my posts you'll know there's been a fair amount of that recently.

If I have a regret it's been my tone I've often taken. Some of that has been out of exasperation. Some of that has been unintentional while multitasking. Some of that has been the weight of all this. None of those are good excuses.

I appreciate the community here, even though I passionately disagree with many of you.

Looks like it was just a weekend effect in dallas 109 new cases today

Jenkins mentioned today that there is evidence the curve is flattening in Dallas via the hospital numbers. Hopefully that is a good thing and holds to be true.

We have some bad weeks ahead. Fortunately it will not be as bad as forecast.

Hopefully people will continue to practice proper hygiene and things can begin to resume some sort of normalcy. However, if they go back to the way things were...

The heat and high humidity need to return to Texas and stay here. That will be our best helper next to hygiene.

I also hope people and companies have learned if someone is sick, it's cheaper to pay them to take the day off than it is to have them come in.

Love me some Jenkins happy b day sir

I haven't showered today. I did brush my teeth. So I got that going for me.

I washed my hands five times today. Looking forward to the day when I can wash the rest of me.

I wash so much at work now my arms are ashy to my elbows

Your poor wife and daughters....

Looks like the stock market rethought the situation.

I never understood why companies were so weird about that. One boss I had said, if you’re sick, stay home. I don’t care if you use a sick day or not, just don’t get everyone else here sick. Made sense to me.

Oh Lord thought it was a Fira!!

Not to play devils advoacate but I do believe a tap the brakes initiative is in order. Now there aremore tests available, and more people being tested the case numbers may rise statistically. What will be interesting to see is if the recovery rate vs. deceased rate delta increases.

I'm ready to get on with a new normal and for the economy to revive but not at the expense of a spike in deaths and healthcare overwhelmed to the point of haveing to make triage decisions they are not equipped for.

https://www.fox4news.com/news/dalla...rs-of-judge-clay-jenkins-during-pandemic

JWP is the GOAT.