Ok, I have some questions about where we go from here. The table below is information pulled from the TX Dept of Health COVID-19 dashboard.
I know we have all been staying at home, staying healthy, flattening the curve, etc. but I am astonished at how low these numbers are. What is your guess of what percent of the picture this really represents. 20% / 50% / 80% ? I'm sure these are artificially low because of the lack of testing, limits of testing to those in risk groups or with severe symptoms, etc. but I don't have a good feel for how low. Are 70% of the people currently infected going to still die which will drastically alter the fatality rates?
The highest infection rate in a county is basically a tenth of a percent in Galveston County and fatality rates of total population are between 1 and 2 thousandths of a percent of total area population. Multiply those numbers by 10 or even 100 and certainly it represents a tragic loss of life but at some point you reconcile that versus a longstanding death rate of the US population of around 0.9% annually. Am I really terrible at math? Are we amazing at flattening the curve? What's the go forward plan. Are entire schools closed for 2 or 3 weeks each time a kid is sick or does a classroom monitor for symptoms if someone gets sick but keeps operating? Same question for offices, stores, restaurants (complete shutdown if someone is infected)?
For those of you who own / manage businesses, if working from home has been successful and is viable for your business model do you encourage it beyond the government directive or is everyone "ordered" back to the office at the first opportunity? Troph's questions about commercial real estate I think hangs in the balance.
https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83
County
cases
deaths
population
infection rate
fatality rate of those infected
fatality rate of population
Travis
977
17
1,274,000
0.077%
1.74%
0.0013%
Williamson
128
4
590,551
0.022%
3.13%
0.0007%
Hays
109
1
230,191
0.047%
0.92%
0.0004%
Austin Metro Area
1,214
22
2,094,742
0.058%
1.81%
0.0011%
Dallas
1,986
43
2,636,000
0.075%
2.17%
0.0016%
Tarrant
990
30
2,103,000
0.047%
3.03%
0.0014%
Denton
547
14
887,207
0.062%
2.56%
0.0016%
Collin
494
10
1,035,000
0.048%
2.02%
0.0010%
DFW Metro Area
4,017
97
6,661,207
0.060%
2.41%
0.0015%
Harris
4,097
58
4,713,000
0.087%
1.42%
0.0012%
Ft. Bend
627
15
811,688
0.077%
2.39%
0.0018%
Montgomery
331
6
607,391
0.054%
1.81%
0.0010%
Brazoria
272
3
374,264
0.073%
1.10%
0.0008%
Galveston
401
13
342,139
0.117%
3.24%
0.0038%
Houston Metro Area
5,728
95
6,848,482
0.084%
1.66%
0.0014%
COMBINED TOTAL
10,959
214
15,604,431
0.070%
1.95%
0.0014%