July 3, 2020

New York Shows How to Contain Virus that Torments
Texas with Initial Death Tolls as Dinosaur Barometer

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Total number of deaths had been a primitive gauge of success or failure during a pandemic when the Spanish Flu ravaged the planet almost 102 years ago. Researchers at the University of Michigan concluded that the city of Dallas had based its initial response to the influenza crisis in 1918 on a "stunning and narrow-minded belief" that focused on the fatality toll without any real attempt to contain the spread.

But the ancient criterion had been the only one that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Fox News host Laura Ingraham cited when comparing the experiences of Texas and New York during the COVID-19 crisis in a conversation on her show this week.

Patrick had been trying to make a point on how he believed that the second coronavirus surge in Texas hadn't been anywhere as a bad as it had been portrayed in the liberal media. Patrick indicated that he and Governor Greg Abbott had been calling the shots on the contagion based on advice from medical experts who he said were for more reliable than Anthony Fauci who he accused of gross incompetence as the foremost authority on the virus in the United States.

But the lieutenant governor didn't appear to know at the time that Governor Greg Abbott would be imposing a statewide mask order the following day in a belated recognition that the coronavirus was out of control in Texas.

Ingraham and Patrick appeared to be both shocked and disgusted by the fact that Texas was being likened to New York as the largest epicenter in the coronavirus resurgence in America. Ingraham agreed 100 percent with the lieutenant governor's assertion that the comparison was absurd given that more than 31,000 people had died from COVID-19 infections in New York compared to less than 2,500 in Texas.

But Patrick and Ingraham failed to mention and might not have realized that the Empire State has been crushing Texas in terms of the results in all of the most categories for judging the individual responses of states to the current crisis.

Patrick's appearance on the conservative cable network - whether by calculation or coincidence - had been timed with a predictable weekly dip in the new case and death counts. The state Senate president accurately noted that Texas had only had 57 people die with coronavirus infections in the three previous days combined.

But Texas recorded 151 virus fatalities in the next three days with a record 57 deaths on the day after the interview with Patrick when 10 people died from virus infections in New York. The state of New York has reported 35 deaths in the same three-day span after recording 25 in the three days before the Patrick briefing on the virus in Texas on Fox News.

Texas logged a record 8,076 new coronavirus cases on the day after the Patrick appearance on the national news this week when New York had 875. New York has reported 4,652 new cases in the past seven days compared to 46,168 in Texas during that time.

This means that the contagion is currently almost 10 times worse now in the Lone Star State where hospitals are flowing over with COVID-19 patients. After being caught by surprise in a development that gave states like Texas a massive heads up, New York has truly flattened the curve in the past month with an average daily of one new coronavirus case for every 21 that Texas has record in the last week alone.

The NY reopening has been remarkably successful despite the horrendous odds that the northeastern state faced at the outset as a consequence of a population density in New York City and its status as the world's number one hub for international travel. The Texas reopening is moving in reverse with Abbott shutting down bars again last week before replacing restrictions on the size of public gatherings on Thursday when he implemented the first statewide face-covering requirement here.

New York - thanks in significant part to the early hammering - has had one of the most effective coronavirus testing initiative while the Texas record in that regard has been less than mediocre. Texas has climbed up to 42nd in the nation with a considerable boost in testing in the final two weeks of a monthlong second outbreak.

But New York ranks second behind only Rhode Island with 20,323 of every 100,000 people having been tested for COVID-19 compared to a mere 6,696 in the Lone Star State.

Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo - unlike his Texas counterpart - had been serious when he said that NY would not reopen until it a testing positivity rate below federal recommendations for at least two weeks. Abbott had said that he would follow the same criteria on the rate of positive tests as a guiding factor before appearing to abandon that after a week or two.

The Center for Disease Control considers anything below 5 percent to be an acceptable testing positivity benchmark. New York ranked fourth in the nation with a positivity rate of 1.05 percent on Friday morning when Texas was fourth from the bottom at a record-shattering 14.45 percent.

New York has been a model in how to contain the coronavirus after a start with a monstrous disadvantage. Texas has done just the opposite as a state that got off to a relatively easy and thought it had the spread under control before erupting in recent weeks into the largest hot spot with a second surge that it had failed to anticipate.

To focus on fatalities during the early stages of the initial wave is living in the past. The ultimate measure of success will be how soon residents can get back to some semblance of life as they knew it before 2020. New York is leading Texas big time in that respect.