Texas Jeff

I'm OK with masks being required indoors and outdoors if the numbers are bad. Once the numbers drop, outdoor masks should not be required. Once they drop more, indoor masks should not be required. Maybe the rules should be different for schools with kids less than the vaccinated age. However, if they can require masks in defiance of a state order, why can't they just require kids to be vaccinated unless they have a medical condition that prevents it? Put all the unvaccinated middle and high school kids in one school. Sounds harsh but I really want this thing to be over. A school with 100% vaccinated faculty, staff and students would not have a COVID problem. We have a fix for this problem sitting in the fridge at CVS.

Births per woman by race in the US, as of 2019: Hispanic: 1.94 Black (non-Hispanic): 1.77 White: 1.61 Asian: 1.51 You are correct that there is a difference, but I don't think there's enough of a gap to account for the vaccination differences.

Don't have over 18 numbers, but I do have over 12 numbers (everyone eligible) First shot: 70.5% Fully vaccinated: 61.3% Some first shot folks did not show up for the second one, that fully vaxxed number should be 67% by now. About 330k folks in Travis Co are eligible but still have yet to get even one shot, using 2021 population estimates.

This just in, from 1918. Starting to look familiar?

Today, Travis County crossed the 70% first shot boundary for the population over 12, using 2021 population estimates. So if everyone gets second shots, we are 5-6 weeks away from "herd immunity" using just the vaccinated numbers. Between the high vax rate and the delta spike, I think this is really the last wave for Travis. Rural Texas ... y'all have a ways to go.

Here is my un-scientific thinking on this. Don't think I know what I am talking about because I am not an expert. Consider some illness that has a natural R value of, say, six. That means that if I get it and no one is vaccinated or immune, I give it to six more people. And they each give it to six more, and so on. Exponential growth. Now, let's say that 50% of the population can't get this thing. They are vaccinated or they've had it before. So of my six randomly selected victims, it bounces off of three who are immune, but still gets three morons, uh, unvaccinated, folks sick. The R value is now three. Three morons. (and some unfortunate folks that can't get the vax). The illness will spread exponentially until the R value goes below one. R value of 1.01 -- you are screwed. R value of 0.99 -- it will not spread. So, if the delta variant has a natural R value around 6, then we need more than 5 out of 6 people vaccinated or exposed to get that R value below one. Even if a super-delta variant shows up with an R of 10, we are good if more than 9 out of 10 people are immune. Immunity may wane over time, so boosters may be needed to keep the immune population high enough to keep each variant's R value below one.

Measles, while still existing here on planet Earth ... for some reason is not a problem here in the US ... can't think of why that is... Oh yeah, most of our parents dragged us down to get shots when we were tykes because they didn't want us to get measles. Was there crying? Yes ... not me of course, I took it like a man and asked for more. Got to pick out a little toy from the office toy box. You know what I didn't get? Measles. There are reasons not to get this vax for some of us. I can see pregnant folks, or little kids, or those with medical conditions. But man, I don't get these places that are at 30% or so. Healthy folks really need to step up and shut this thing down. I really don't get why enough of us aren't stepping up to protect those who can't get the vax.

Win the X-prize for Burt Rutan. This is just a scaled up version of that original mission.

Baseball purists want to know .... how do you score this? E1-9? backwards C? Circled V with a little slash through it?

Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads...

BTW, Austin ISD's Robin Hood payment is expected to be around $709 million next year. I think it was around $618 million two or so years ago. They collect the money; they just can't keep the money. We are approaching a $10,000 Robin Hood payment per enrolled student -- currently around $9400 per kid.

I would just take them back to the campus where you got them, go the office and hand them in. Most of the campus are pretty vacant right now but I know the admin staff at the high school level will be back in by mid-July or so. Certainly you could take them back when school resumes. AISD did send out emails to groups like graduating seniors, people not returning, etc telling them to turn in their technology in May, but you may have missed it if you've completely left the district.

I track vaccine data for Texas, but I use projected 2021 population data rather than the 2019 data used by the state. At my higher population numbers, today is a big day for Texas -- 50.01% of the eligible population now has a first shot. Halfway there... Travis County is a day or two away from two-thirds of the eligible population having a first shot. The number of first shot vaccinations per day has stabilized. There was a bump mid-May when the 12-15 group became eligible but since then it's been pretty flat, around 40k per day.

Over the weekend, I went back and watched portions of the city council discussion to see where this is headed. I can report back and say it is not headed anywhere. The council and city staff are still bunkered up from COVID, and there is only so much you can accomplish via Zoom. The folks on council that got us to this point don't want to take any steps that might harm the homeless. Somehow they want the city staff to come up with large sites out of the floodplain near downtown that are city owned that are not being used for any other purpose, in one of the most expensive downtown areas in the country. Also, one site per district would be best, unless said site is actually in a council member's district, in which case it's a bad idea. Add it up and there is no solution, and council and staff have a bunch of circular discussions that eventually end with "meeting adjourned, thanks everyone for all of the hard work". Don't think that there is a plan that maps to reality ... I didn't see one.

The Texas 7 day new case average bottomed out about a week ago but has doubled since then. Hopefully it's a glitch in the data but it could be the start of a wave. People of Texas, get vaccinated ...

More than 13,000,000 Texans have now helped stop COVID by getting at least first shot. Even with the slowdown, people choosing to get a first shot are still outnumbering newly diagnosed cases about 18:1.

There is an old Air Force golf course that is part of ABIA that has the space for an entire camp, next door to a Travis Co correctional facility. Putting a camp there would bother no one, so long as they could keep people off the runways. This is not supposed to be permanent housing and it does not have to be great.

BTW the fine print on the Travis County dashboard for hospitalizations says: "Metropolitan Statistical Area MSA: Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, & Williamson Counties" So it looks like that number is for the five county area. Perhaps they are not all in Travis Co hospital beds. Maybe they are. But the stat appears to be for the MSA, not Travis Co.

Travis Co reporting 480 active cases today. First day under 500 since April 6th, 2020.

They should be. The homeless folks are going from camping on a sidewalk to a spot with a full time manager, two security guards, a social worker, food, laundry, restrooms, showers ... ... versus living in a tent down by the river in most other Texas towns. The city will be able to fill up 100 of those campsites.

In Travis Co, today was the first day the seven day average has been below 50 since May 17, 2020. Careful on those daily stats. Lots of counties have stopped reporting numbers over the weekend so you're likely to see big drops on Sat/Sun/Mon as weekend numbers dip, then bigger numbers Mon/Tue/Wed as the data catches up. Seven day averages are your friend... Texas had low numbers on the weekend, tweets all around! Today was 8-10x the weekend numbers statewide ... not as many tweets. Still headed in the right direction.

You go Travis County... ... 4.5% of 12-15 year olds got their first shot by the end of Saturday ... population 12 and older is over 59% first shots ... 65 and older is over 78% first shots. join the herd everyone, it's the easy way out of this thing! Both Texas and Travis Co are showing vaccination bumps now that 12-15 year olds are in the game...

Maybe 1997? https://www.texasfreeway.com/austin/183-research-blvd/

Those are crazy numbers. Why would we pay for two security guards to watch 100 people 24/7 at a cost of $3900 per person per year? Are social services people really $171k per year each ... to watch over 50 people in addition to what the operational staffer and the security guards are doing? That is 3x teacher pay. Each camp needs an operational staffer at another $150k each? $1750 per person for annual laundry? Crazy...

I think it's going to keep going down ... but it could be going down faster. Even with the slowing vaccine numbers, more people are getting vaccinated each day than are getting covid. Right now the 7 day average vaccinations for Texas is 45k and the 7 day average COVID cases is 1300. Even if we are only finding 1/4th of the covid cases out there, vaccines are winning new customers much faster than COVID is. As long as those ratios hold, eventually it will die away ...