Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away

[Guest Lobo]

Well played.  Utee94 should be along here any moment now to discuss my affinity for delicious Subway sandwiches.  

But seriously folks, on macro levels...there are hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 cases that'd don't follow the cold/hot weather theory, that don't follow the public transportation/non-public transportation theory, the red state/blue state theory, etc.  This thing continue to defy predictability which is why region-based trace/test/treat continues to be the only serious option while people apparently clamor to get back to movie theaters.  This simulation is so fucking bizarre, I'm 80% convinced to go in as an equity partner on Blockbuster Video franchise since the businesses allowed back open this week make zero fucking sense.   

[Cheeseweasel 26437]

17 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

Is it possible instead that we simply don’t have a lot of sick people and our testing is completely appropriate for the current health of our population?

Look man, I was promised 'game over' and I want 'game over'.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10145]

52 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Amarillo seems to be heating up in terms of new cases especially in Potter County. It doesn't seem like a good time for them to start opening up too many stores or restaurants.

Based on the new cases I don't think opening things up is going to hurt things much as people aren't staying home anyway.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10145]

30 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

My wife has 3 nieces in expensive private colleges right now, two at very good universities and one in ft worth. The parents have said they will not register their kids in the fall if it’s distance learning, they will do local juco classes instead. At least one school has already sent an email saying that not registering for a semester puts their spot i jeopardy going forward. 
so a game of chicken is developing if online is the fall plan. 

2 in college now and both said (and we agree) will sit out until classes resume in person... just not worth paying for the experience and learning that is not happening online/remotely.

[Brisketexan 104612]

1 minute ago, Lobo said:

But seriously folks, on macro levels...there are hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 cases that'd don't follow the cold/hot weather theory, that don't follow the public transportation/non-public transportation theory, the red state/blue state theory, etc.

Actually, they seem to follow a common thread: close contact for decent periods of time in indoor areas/conditions conducive to spread.

A crowded subway.  A meat packing plant.  A church choir singing practice.   A Mason city council meeting held in-person a couple of weeks ago.  The commonality is there.  And when people try to compare to places where there HASN'T been much spread, the comparison falls apart.  For example, hundreds of people aren't getting sick from shopping at HEB because HEB is enforcing caps on the number of people, so you avoid close proximity by and large, people are wearing masks, and they aren't yelling/singing/talking and arguing/touching the exact same surface over and over (the things that spread the virus).

Large groups of people indoors with uncovered faces, talking/singing/breathing heavily - that's your recipe for transmission.  It can happen at Mason City Hall as well as NYC subway car #355.

[Guest Lobo]

Better said than I could have said it.  Confirms my theory nevertheless, people gathering no matter under which banner is never a good idea.  100 people in a building labeled "Government department of XYZ" and half the population thinks it's sinister.  100 people in a building labeled "XYZ Corporate Offices" and half the population thinks they're up to no good.  100 people at a pro-life or anti-gun rally and half the population think it's wrong.  The common thread is groups of humans fuck shit up.  

Alright, who's up for Applebee's tonight? 

[DaysOff 7851]

Yep, suicide rates go up during financial/medical crisis.  And go down during war.  Birth rates also follow a curious trend during those two types of macro events.
I'm listening to members of the Texas Congressional Delegation right now (so bi-partisan, no politics).  WHAT THE FUCK IS THE FUCKING HOLDUP WITH TESTING? 
We oscillate between 47-49 in terms of per capita testing.  How is this continuing to be fucking possible after 7 weeks of lockdown/4 months of forward knowledge? 
 

Because nobody feels sick, so why get a test? If testing and contact tracing is vital to opening the economy the government (at any level) needs to incentivize getting off the couch and getting a test for the lolz. Cash money, lottery tickets, whatever. Also make it convenient, i.e. let the pharmacists do it. They give me the flu shot every year. 70,000 pharmacies in this country versus 5500 hospitals. I stole a lot of that from Freakonomics.

[bigup2dahorns 3343]

[BabaYaga 15212]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Actually, they seem to follow a common thread: close contact for decent periods of time in indoor areas/conditions conducive to spread.

Which is also true of most other known pathogens - including the common cold and influenza.  I think the point being how many are asymptomatic.  HEB is a loose, correlative point (impossible to really quantify over time and location and adherence - no hall monitors following shoppers around with measuring tape), but what about Home Depot, Lowes, Sams, Costco, etc.  Beyond corporate mandates, they have varying degrees of occupancy based upon location.   

Its' the COVID "playbook" we still don't know yet.  We know the playbook of the cold, flu, measles, mumps, etc.  But this one still isn't nailed down yet, so we "think" many things are working, but we can't quantify the impact. 

Time and distance are the two mitigation variables we keep coming back to - although there many be others?  We thought initially blood type mattered.  Underlying conditions are there, but where is the attribution?  External factors such as heat?  Texas is heating up, so we'll see.  Transmission?  We have limited testing to know what our actual denominator really is?  My thoughts are the SIP does very little.  Time will bear this out.  

[XYZ 2154]

44 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

I'm guessing the Consumer is going to win this battle.

This. That threat from the university seems very weak at this juncture.

[South Austin 52144]

17 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Actually, they seem to follow a common thread: close contact for decent periods of time in indoor areas/conditions conducive to spread.

A crowded subway.  A meat packing plant.  A church choir singing practice.   A Mason city council meeting held in-person a couple of weeks ago.  South Austin's mom's house.

Before any of you fuckers could.

[stork642 4498]

2 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Why not?  What is different about ny that can’t and won’t happen to other large metro populations as we open back up?

why are some so quick to exclude nyc as an outlier when number crunching?

tell me what about their population makes them more susceptible to catching, spreading, and/or dying from covid than the rest of the country. 

Yeah, there is nothing unique about 8.5 million people living on a 300 square mile island.  We have those all over the US.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  

[Cheeseweasel 26437]

15 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Alright, who's up for Applebee's tonight? 

[Brisketexan 104612]

2 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Which is also true of most other known pathogens - including the common cold and influenza.  I think the point being how many are asymptomatic.  HEB is a loose, correlative point (impossible to really quantify over time and location and adherence - no hall monitors following shoppers around with measuring tape), but what about Home Depot, Lowes, Sams, Costco, etc.  Beyond corporate mandates, they have varying degrees of occupancy based upon location.   

Its' the COVID "playbook" we still don't know yet.  We know the playbook of the cold, flu, measles, mumps, etc.  But this one still isn't nailed down yet, so we "think" many things are working, but we can't quantify the impact. 

Time and distance are the two mitigation variables we keep coming back to - although there many be others?  We thought initially blood type mattered.  Underlying conditions are there, but where is the attribution?  External factors such as heat?  Texas is heating up, so we'll see.  Transmission?  We have limited testing to know what our actual denominator really is?  My thoughts are the SIP does very little.  Time will bear this out.  

I mean, other than that the bolded makes no sense whatsoever (note, I'm not talking about whether it was worth it -- I'm just talking about the fact of limiting interpersonal contact).

We don't know all of the factors with precision, but come on -- it's a communicable disease spread by respiratory transmission.  Reducing interactions where such transmission is possible of course lowers the transmission rate.  It would work with the flu, common cold, or any other similarly transmittable virus.  Of course SIP has a material effect.  That doesn't mean that other things don't have a material impact (blood type, heat, etc.) -- but the dismissal of SIP out of hand makes zero sense.

[bigup2dahorns 3343]

[Cheeseweasel 26437]

4 minutes ago, XYZ said:

This. That threat from the university seems very weak at this juncture.

We are going to take your hundreds and thousands of dollars and possibly not open up. TAKE THAT! And LIKE IT.

[clapclapclap 9000]

1 hour ago, Royalfan5 said:

For your afternoon livestock report, cattle runs through packing plants were off slightly but still ahead of Wednesday's low with a slightly bigger Saturday run expected, and with bigger cattle production should be past the low point if sustained. Hogs were down slightly from yesterday, but 20K off the low, with a bigger Saturday run expected as well. The Tyson Plant in Dakota City, NE continues to make JBS in Grand Island like they've done a good job with 670 of 4000 workers testing positive in the past week. They are expected to run on Monday after being idle the last two weeks. 

I always expect these posts to immediately be followed by, "Hello, Americans, this is Paul Harvey, stand by for news!"

[dcar00 14035]

37 minutes ago, bullzak said:

Have you ever seen Grand Central at rush hour? Mass transit brings more people into tighter quarters than anything on earth, especially in NYC. 

When we get real contact tracing people will really see it. 

I bet the exposure for anyone who rode that in March is much much higher than the national average but you cant prove it. 

well that and a Texas LSU football game student section entrance...

[Brisketexan 104612]

1 minute ago, stork642 said:

Yeah, there is nothing unique about 8.5 million people living on a 300 square mile island.  We have those all over the US.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  

The only unique thing is the number.

If 300 people in Bent Dick, Oklahoma regularly pack into a church, hug, shake hands, and shout a joyful noise to the lord, they're gonna pass around a respiratory virus, too.  If they pack into the Bent Dick City Hall for a heated council meeting about the new fire hydrants, same thing.  IF they all work together in the same meat processing plant, same thing.  And on a per-capita basis, the Bent Dick infection rate can easily surpass NYC's.

[Js1 85110]

30 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Look man, I was promised 'game over' and I want 'game over'.

This has been run into the ground. Jesus, its  now as unfunny as “ballgame” 

[Cheeseweasel 26437]

1 minute ago, dcar00 said:

well that and a Texas LSU football game student section entrance...

You're going to catch worse than Covid there...

[dcar00 14035]

2 minutes ago, Js1 said:

This has been run into the ground. Jesus, its  now as unfunny as “ballgame” 

so Ballgame! on Game Over!?

[Royalfan5 2348]

4 minutes ago, clapclapclap said:

I always expect these posts to immediately be followed by, "Hello, Americans, this is Paul Harvey, stand by for news!"

When I am on the AM ag radios, I do try to drop a "Good Day" as a signoff from time to time. 

[BERT 4351]

5 minutes ago, Js1 said:

This has been run into the ground. Jesus, its  now as unfunny as “ballgame” 

What are you, the funny police? 

[BabaYaga 15212]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

I mean, other than that the bolded makes no sense whatsoever (note, I'm not talking about whether it was worth it -- I'm just talking about the fact of limiting interpersonal contact).

We don't know all of the factors with precision, but come on -- it's a communicable disease spread by respiratory transmission.  Reducing interactions where such transmission is possible of course lowers the transmission rate.  It would work with the flu, common cold, or any other similarly transmittable virus.  Of course SIP has a material effect.  That doesn't mean that other things don't have a material impact (blood type, heat, etc.) -- but the dismissal of SIP out of hand makes zero sense.

My point being on paper distance makes sense.  Of course.  I just don't think the efficacy of what was done relative to the economic destruction wrought  balance out.  We know many adhered, but many others did not.  Short of tanks in the streets, what did we accomplish short of trillions lost?  Now we are opening back up?  What did the time buy us?

My guess is time will bear out that models such as we see with Sweden and southern states opening up with caution.  SIP was never about lowering the transmission rate.  At least outside of lowering as it relates to overloading the medical system, which we know is not happening.  So it's not a SIP dismissal.  We all know that it's as option.  The question is whether it's the right action, and worth the cost?

[utee94 15745]

42 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Well played.  Utee94 should be along here any moment now to discuss my affinity for delicious Subway sandwiches.  

But seriously folks, on macro levels...there are hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 cases that'd don't follow the cold/hot weather theory, that don't follow the public transportation/non-public transportation theory, the red state/blue state theory, etc.  This thing continue to defy predictability which is why region-based trace/test/treat continues to be the only serious option while people apparently clamor to get back to movie theaters.  This simulation is so fucking bizarre, I'm 80% convinced to go in as an equity partner on Blockbuster Video franchise since the businesses allowed back open this week make zero fucking sense.   

You rang?

For the record, I don't like Subway either.

But the Metro in Paris is fantastic.  Or, it was, in the BeforeTimes.

[Js1 85110]

7 minutes ago, BERT said:

What are you, the funny police? 

That’s detective to you. 

[BabaYaga 15212]

Triple fuck China

Will you look at this.  This is my surprised face....hiding nothing, I'm sure.

Quote

China has refused repeated requests by the World Health Organisation to take part in investigations into the origins of COVID-19, the WHO representative in China has told Sky News....WHO is making requests of the health commission and of the authorities," he said. "The origins of virus are very important, the animal-human interface is extremely important and needs to be studied.

"The priority is we need to know as much as possible to prevent the re occurrence.

Quote

While the Wuhan market origin of the virus is still considered likely, China has also not released any data that would back up that origin. For instance, China has claimed that after it shuttered the market it tested animals found there and found samples of the corona virus, but the details, such as which animals were tested and the test results, have not been released.

The other problem with the wet market theory is that about a third of the initial cohort of 41 cases did not have a connection to the market. In fact, the person believed to be the first person to come down with the disease hadn’t been to the market. That’s not to say the disease didn’t spread at the market, it clearly did early on, but the evidence that the market was the origin point is still lacking.

Interesting, but not surprising.  

[Brisketexan 104612]

3 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

My point being on paper distance makes sense.  Of course.  I just don't think the efficacy of what was done relative to the economic destruction wrought  balance out.  We know many adhered, but many others did not.  Short of tanks in the streets, what did we accomplish short of trillions lost?  Now we are opening back up?  What did the time buy us?

My guess is time will bear out that models such as we see with Sweden and southern states opening up with caution.  SIP was never about lowering the transmission rate.  At least outside of lowering as it relates to overloading the medical system, which we know is not happening.  So it's not a SIP dismissal.  We all know that it's as option.  The question is whether it's the right action, and worth the cost?

Well, we saw increases on hospitalizations and deaths sloping upward rather dramatically.

Now, we've seen those rates hold relatively steady.  I mean, the approach was about "flattening the curve," and the curve has literally flattened.  On March 31, we had 369 deaths a day.  By April 15, 1,880 per day.   April 22, 2,715.  April 29, back down to 1,899 per day.  In a month we went from 370 to a peak of 2700, and are now back down to 1900.  So, I mean, it demonstrably lowered the fatality rate (a trailing indicator of transmission rate).

Again, whether the juice was worth the squeeze is its own conversation.  But you seem to be questioning whether we got any juice at all....which we clearly did.

[Loco 3752]

So that whole Norway / Sweden thing takes on new context

[tbone_ 14022]

Why?

[stork642 4498]

9 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

The only unique thing is the number.

If 300 people in Bent Dick, Oklahoma regularly pack into a church, hug, shake hands, and shout a joyful noise to the lord, they're gonna pass around a respiratory virus, too.  If they pack into the Bent Dick City Hall for a heated council meeting about the new fire hydrants, same thing.  IF they all work together in the same meat processing plant, same thing.  And on a per-capita basis, the Bent Dick infection rate can easily surpass NYC's.

Right just like NYC except 28,333 times smaller.  Again, NYC’s data cannot be extrapolated and compared to the rest of the US.  Pato was saying that there is really nothing unique about NYC.  You can always compare your meat packers in Bent Dick to another small group but let’s not compare the data from 300 people regularly meeting to the data of the most populous city in the US. 

[ChickenSandwich 9798]

29 minutes ago, stork642 said:

Yeah, there is nothing unique about 8.5 million people living on a 300 square mile island.  We have those all over the US.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  

Yes, all major cities have 6million public transportation rides each day as well.

NY is an outlier.  They never closed the subway and they sent infected patients to Nursing homes against their will.  New York is nothing like the rest of the country

[BabaYaga 15212]

4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Again, whether the juice was worth the squeeze is its own conversation. 

This

Quote

But you seem to be questioning whether we got any juice at all....which we clearly did.

Of course I'm not.  Even Sweden is sheltering.  They are just utilizing a different strategy, which was & is the point.  What I want to see are the curves or various countries in arrears (say months from now) that or states utilizing various distancing strategies.  My guess is they are not mitigating the curve, they are pushing it.  Pushing it out over time.  

[Foosters 17732]

31 minutes ago, stork642 said:

Yeah, there is nothing unique about 8.5 million people living on a 300 square mile island.  We have those all over the US.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  

I asked earlier, but no one responded. Throwing NYC out as an outlier due to its unique density is fine. What about Los Angeles? Shelter at home for 6 weeks and we're getting 60-80 deaths a day? 1,100+ total.  Why will other non-NYC cities be different?

[JBJ 3649]

1 hour ago, wild_turkey said:

Perhaps a stupid question, but are we sure that Texas is deficient in testing?

That was obviously the case a month ago when it was very difficult to get tested, but I haven’t heard any recent reports of Texas citizens with COVID-19 symptoms who are unable to get tested.

Also, we don’t have a large number of people dying from mysterious unknown causes. Our hospitals are relatively empty.

Is it possible instead that we simply don’t have a lot of sick people and our testing is completely appropriate for the current health of our population?

 

My friend tested on Monday and got results Tuesday.  They told her they could get same-day results if necessary.

I believe this was at BUMC (Baylor near Deep Ellum).  Might have been Medical City.

Edited May 1, 2020 by JBJ

[Brisketexan 104612]

5 minutes ago, tbone_ said:

Why?

Because the outcome is adjusted to percentage of expected deaths, which is a good apples-to-apples comparison point (being that countries have different populations, and even different baseline mortality rates).

Norway and Denmark took an approach that saw their deaths either stay steady or go up a mere 5%.  Sweden saw a 23% spike.  Italy saw a 90% spike.  Those are strong data points.  And our spot in that mix at 15% is a helpful data point as well.

[ruitxn 295]

On 4/17/2020 at 7:11 PM, Incredulity said:

 

Edited May 1, 2020 by ruitxn

['stache 21774]

32 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

The only unique thing is the number.

If 300 people in Bent Dick, Oklahoma regularly pack into a church, hug, shake hands, and shout a joyful noise to the lord, they're gonna pass around a respiratory virus, too.  If they pack into the Bent Dick City Hall for a heated council meeting about the new fire hydrants, same thing.  IF they all work together in the same meat processing plant, same thing.  And on a per-capita basis, the Bent Dick infection rate can easily surpass NYC's.

Hey now, a lot of very prominent and successful people have come from Bent Dick, OK, including the entire defensive line from ou's 1956 championship team. They were known as the Bent Dick Bunch. 

[Loco 3752]

19 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Well, we saw increases on hospitalizations and deaths sloping upward rather dramatically.

Now, we've seen those rates hold relatively steady.  I mean, the approach was about "flattening the curve," and the curve has literally flattened.  On March 31, we had 369 deaths a day.  By April 15, 1,880 per day.   April 22, 2,715.  April 29, back down to 1,899 per day.  In a month we went from 370 to a peak of 2700, and are now back down to 1900.  So, I mean, it demonstrably lowered the fatality rate (a trailing indicator of transmission rate).

Again, whether the juice was worth the squeeze is its own conversation.  But you seem to be questioning whether we got any juice at all....which we clearly did.

1) They were going to die anyway

2) It's probably because they didn't go to the hospital....  oh wait

[Brisketexan 104612]

7 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Yes, all major cities have 6million public transportation rides each day as well.

NY is an outlier.  They never closed the subway and they sent infected patients to Nursing homes against their will.  New York is nothing like the rest of the country

NY is an outlier only because of its size.  Because of its size, the conditions that exist there (people in close proximity) allowed their total numbers to go higher.  But per capita is per capita.  There are 8 million people in NYC.   There are 8 million people in the various Bent Dicks or Possum Squats around the US.  If those people behave similarly -- they choose to be in close proximity to each other engaging in high risk activities like singing and such, or working in the meat plants -- then they will see a similar infection and death RATE.

NYC taught us plenty, and was a bellweather situation -- density and close connection allows for rapid spread.  That's true whether you're on the subway or at church singing Amazing Grace or at the JBS pork plant or at Coachella.  We likely won't see the RAW numbers from someplace else that we saw in NYC, but we're already seeing similar per capita numbers in certain smaller places.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19093]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

NY is an outlier only because of its size.  Because of its size, the conditions that exist there (people in close proximity) allowed their total numbers to go higher.  But per capita is per capita.  There are 8 million people in NYC.   There are 8 million people in the various Bent Dicks or Possum Squats around the US.  If those people behave similarly -- they choose to be in close proximity to each other engaging in high risk activities like singing and such, or working in the meat plants -- then they will see a similar infection and death RATE.

NYC taught us plenty, and was a bellweather situation -- density and close connection allows for rapid spread.  That's true whether you're on the subway or at church singing Amazing Grace or at the JBS pork plant or at Coachella.  We likely won't see the RAW numbers from someplace else that we saw in NYC, but we're already seeing similar per capita numbers in certain smaller places.

Close proximity is not a choice in Manhattan where population density is 72k per square mile, but it sure as shit is in Bent Dick, Oklahoma.  

[Brisketexan 104612]

Just now, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

Close proximity is not a choice in Manhattan where population density is 72k per square mile, but it sure as shit is in Bent Dick, Oklahoma.  

Sometimes it is -- see the folks at the Bent Dick Church of Snakehandling and Preacher Escalades, where folks defy orders and congregate closely to sing hymns and take up serpents.

And sometimes it's not -- see the poor fuckers being bused in to work at the JBS meat plant outside Amarillo.

Either way, they create focal points for infection to spread.  But yeah, where they CHOOSE to create mini-NYCs should really piss us off.

[0xdeadbeef 1626]

2 hours ago, XYZ said:

In Travis County we are still bound by the stay-at-home order from the County Judge, right?

Anyone have an answer for this?

I know there was a little side discussion on one of the threads after Abbot's press conference about the legality of the TX governor overriding local judges. Maybe I just didn't see the end of that discussion.  The last I saw was it was ambiguous with both county and governor having language that seemed to put them in control.    The executive order GA-18 actually suspends the part of the Texas Government Code that gave Counties their authority.  "I hereby suspend Sections 418.1015(b) and 418.10$ of the Texas Government Code  ..."    Can he do that?

On the austintexas.gov site, under the 'Current Orders', it still lists the April 13th Stay At Home order (from both Austin and Travis) that runs through May 8th.

So which is it?

[dcar00 14035]

3 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

Close proximity is not a choice in Manhattan where population density is 72k per square mile, but it sure as shit is in Bent Dick, Oklahoma.  

once a week vs. twice a day every day, completely random people on every trip vs the same 300  once a week.

Edited May 1, 2020 by dcar00

[utee94 15745]

23 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Because the outcome is adjusted to percentage of expected deaths, which is a good apples-to-apples comparison point (being that countries have different populations, and even different baseline mortality rates).

Norway and Denmark took an approach that saw their deaths either stay steady or go up a mere 5%.  Sweden saw a 23% spike.  Italy saw a 90% spike.  Those are strong data points.  And our spot in that mix at 15% is a helpful data point as well.

But Sweden's intentional trek toward herd immunity was ALWAYS going to result in more deaths, sooner.  Comparing them in absolute or per capita or % of expected deaths, while we're still merely halfway through the first quarter, doesn't make any sense.  We won't know for another 12-18 months whether or not Sweden's strategy paid off, it's possible that it won't.  But attempting to make any comparisons NOW is worse than useless, because it's also misleading.

Edited May 1, 2020 by utee94

[kevwun 15648]

9 minutes ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

Anyone have an answer for this?

I know there was a little side discussion on one of the threads after Abbot's press conference about the legality of the TX governor overriding local judges. Maybe I just didn't see the end of that discussion.  The last I saw was it was ambiguous with both county and governor having language that seemed to put them in control.    The executive order GA-18 actually suspends the part of the Texas Government Code that gave Counties their authority.  "I hereby suspend Sections 418.1015(b) and 418.10$ of the Texas Government Code  ..."    Can he do that?

On the austintexas.gov site, under the 'Current Orders', it still lists the April 13th Stay At Home order (from both Austin and Travis) that runs through May 8th.

So which is it?

The gist is that the Governor can declare a statewide emergency and a County Judge can declare a countywide emergency.  The Governor does not have the power to rescind an emergency declaration on the county level, which is what he did.  Texas has a constitutionally weak Governorship and the Legislature has much more power when it comes to overriding things on the City and County level.

Edited May 1, 2020 by kevwun

[Guest Lobo]

which makes me wonder, in some counties-a Judge is making the call.  In other counties, the Commissioner is making the call (the de facto head of the Exec. Branch), still in other counties it's the mayor of the county seat/largest city.  Why is that?

[kevwun 15648]

I haven't seen a Commissioner make that declaration.  The County Judge is who has to do it.  It can be approved by the Commissioners Court I suppose, but the County Judge is still the person who has to issue the order.

[MNLonghornFUKM 8799]

once a week vs. twice a day every day, completely random people on every trip vs the same 300  once a week.

Don’t forget people from DC/Baltimore/Philly/Boston and the 9000 other towns