Bad day for fatalities in Texas. 313. New cases in at 7018. New cases have clearly flattened out in the 7k range this week after starting the week off at almost 9k.
The question is now: what happens next? Texas has been at or above 7k positives for a month and a half. If you look at the curves for the states hit hard early, like NY, NJ, MA, etc., positive cases had come down significantly after about six weeks into the worst of the outbreak and were pretty much under control by week 12. If you compare the progress in TX, FL, AL, etc., it is a much slower decline with no sign of getting back to even the levels before the surge.
I can't find it to post, but I saw an interesting thread from one of the leading infectious disease experts. Testing in the southern states is currently in a diagnostic phase. The high demand for testing has resulted in most of the tests going to those with symptoms or to those who were exposed to a positive case. States like NY are actually testing at higher rates that TX, FL, etc. right now because NY has successfully shifted to preventative testing. NY is not testing to just confirm whether people who are sick or came into contact with a positive have the virus. They using testing to try to find new outbreaks so they can be stopped in their tracks. Southern states will need to transition to preventative testing which will mean a different public health message on testing and stepping up tracing measures.
I do fear that without better testing tracing or lockdown measures, we are just in for a very long plateau that will leave us vulnerable to a large outbreak in the fall when the whether changes. Georgia has been stuck above 3k new cases a day for a solid five weeks with sign that things are improving substantially. It may be that the issue of getting to preventative testing is moot until lockdowns are in place to get the positive cases down low enough to make a difference. Otherwise, I think we are in for long plateaus in many of the southern states.