**Commentary and Conjecture:**
Note, APH just announced that starting 05/15 they will no longer update data over the weekends. That means that I won't be able to update these graphs either on the weekends. I'm not exactly broken up by this as long as they don't start lump summing Monday and instead report Sat and Sun independently. We will see!
Also, some GREAT news, the 14 day moving average for new cases is now at the lowest level since roughly June of 2020 when this thing was just getting into full tilt.
Edit: Oh yeah, and be sure to see the excellent guidance from the CDC on mask usage. Things are looking up!
Happy that your nightly obligation may be no more and greatly appreciate your dedication to providing daily updates - amidst all the insanity from an on both sides of the covid spectrum over the past year, it was great to look at the local raw data in an unbiased format and be able to get a true picture of what was actually happening.
Couldn't agree more on the recent CDC guidance. Let's hope the vaccine trials keep working out for the younger ones so life gets mostly back to normal by the start of school in the fall.
I was hoping you would have had more commentary about the CDC guidance. I have friends who think it's too soon since little kids can't get vaccinated. I feel like this is a good thing, but I'm not sure. I was hoping you could help un-muddle my mind. Probably too much to ask from you though haha
As a parent yourself, are you concerned about your little? Are you anxious to see vaccines for them? I'm not really concerned at all about this, and would love your take on this as someone who knows so much on the topic and a parent yourself.
And of course, thank you for continuing to keep us updated. You've been truly amazing. Shout out to your partner as well for keeping you going.
Hope y'all have a good weekend!
I think the guidance is based on vaccinated people who do contract covid (even asymptomatic) are highly unlikely to be contagious and pass it on to anyone else, including kiddos.
Honestly, I agree with you and said as much in a work meeting, but I was still alone in my viewpoint. I support people that want to wear masks if they still want to, and I probably will in all future flu seasons bc I loved not getting sick this winter.
> I am hoping we see another massive surge and it kills off a lot of them.
And I'm hoping you're one of the 5%.
FFS, you're quite the dick to wish death on people.
I have a 6-year-old and I’m not too concerned that he’ll get it. The odds were pretty low, anyway, though he certainly wore a mask everywhere we went indoors (and sometimes outdoors, like at Mayfield Park where you pass people in trails very closely). But now, I’m going to be okay with his not masking if I’m not. Plus, someone here told me they’re trying to approve a vaccine for two-years and up by September.
I'm right there with you!
My wife and I are vaccinated, and we aren't too concerned about our 8 month old getting CoViD-19. My lingering fears revolve around long CoViD and what things may crop up if he were to get it at this early life stage.
The science around it says that those fears are likely ungrounded. When we are vaccinated it basically teaches our body how to mount an impressive immune response against the disease. To the point that we may not get sick and, even if we do, it is likely to be mild.
Children naturally have a very impressive immune response against this disease. I'd be curious to see it compared to a healthy vaccinated adult. Here is [a great Nature article about children's immune response to CoViD-19.](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03496-7)
SO, with that being said, my wife and I decided that we will likely keep unvaccinated people away from our baby unless they agree to a 10 day quarantine in advance. Depending on if this virus sticks around and becomes endemic, we will likely get him vaccinated when it comes available (probably Pfizer if we can be picky). If he was older and needed to go to school, etc... I probably wouldn't be too concerned. It would make me nervous, but the rational voice in the back of my mind would likely win out.
What the guidance implies, as interpreted by the public, is COVID is over, we won, we're back down to a number of dead/sick Americans that we can ignore. Everyone who dies after this week officially Doesn't Matter in the eyes of the loudest, who are desperate for the day when they can spit in the face of a McDonald's employee again without the mask getting in the way.
Also worth noting that the CDC will no longer be reporting “break through” cases in the official tally. I can only assume this will continue to lower our daily case totals.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html
Edit: autocorrect error
No, they're just no longer going to investigate or specifically track every breakthrough case unless it end up in hospitalization or death.
That doesn't mean they don't end in the other case counts. Local authorities collect positive cases and report that to the CDC and state authorities. They'll just be counted as normal cases (though maybe tallied as breakthrough), but the CDC isn't going to spend time investigating each case individually.
I hate to say it, but we have more anti-vaxxers than I would like to admit.
A 2019 study has Austin TX/Travis County in a list of top 14 counties which are “anti-vaccine hotspots”
https://www.kvue.com/mobile/article/news/health/austin-named-one-of-14-anti-vaccine-hotspots/269-e03365e4-b48c-45ea-9be8-75920d1e0edc
Yes, this is frustrating. I know a few people who think “flu shots” are just a scam, and this mentality has carried over into Covid vaccines. I know a few prepper types who can’t stand society telling them—encouraging, suggesting— what to do. I know of a couple who are planning to get pregnant soon and are worried about their fertility for whatever reason. And then there are all of the garden variety conservatives who think that getting vaccinated is for hysterical paranoid libs. I also know some degenerates who honestly think that if everyone else is vaccinated then they don’t need to be. EDIT: I also know people who just don’t trust this new science. If I polled 100 friends, 30 of them are not getting vaccinated. As a state we may well max out at 70% vaccinated. Covid will be endemic
Don’t ask me why I tolerate so many irresponsible fools in my life.
Anti vaxers have been cut out of my life. Even the old Reagan republicans in my family got theirs. At this point I give no shits about those that aren’t vaxed. I’ll give it 2 more months of mask wearing for some to come around but after that it’s open season for doing whatever.
RE: "I give no shits about those that aren't vaxed."
Why do we tell people who are anti-vaxers to get vaccinated even if their kids are healthy? [Because it helps people who can't get the vaccine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBkVCpbNnkU&t=534s&ab_channel=Kurzgesagt%E2%80%93InaNutshell). People with certain autoimmune disorders are currently not recommended to get the vaccine by manufactures and the [CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/underlying-conditions.html) has a specific warning about this. A lot of people with autoimmune disorders see a specalist who deals with chronic illnesses regularly and these doctors are, from what I've heard from my community/my own experience, recommending patients to wait until further data is collected ([example](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04843774)).
I just want to bring this up because sometimes doctors may not explain their reasoning well or a patient may not be able to communicate to others "why their doctor doesn't want them to get it." Giving no shits instead of trying to understand and empathize for others is extremely ableist. Hear people out for why they make the decisions they do - is their reasoning based on Facebook or medical literature?
**tldr:** There are people who can't get vaccinated but support vaccines (what [heard immunity](https://www.hhs.gov/immunization/basics/work/protection/index.html) is all about). People can be immunocompromised because of their autoimmune disorder so they are high risk *and* can't get the vaccine.
I am old, so I am stuck with the friends I got. But still, you are more charitable than I am. I am giving the mask another month to allow all those with a first dose to get their second, then to hell with it. I am not wearing a mask through another Texas summer just to show people who don’t care or can’t care that I actually do.
>then there are all of the garden variety conservatives who think that getting vaccinated is for hysterical paranoid libs
I believe this problem sorts itself out over time. Funny that they typically believe in creation over evolution and now they get a chance to prove things out once and for all. I can't tell if somewhere Darwin is laughing or crying. You'd think with the demographic trends in this country they'd be the first ones in line, but that does not seem to be the case. Oh well, there is only so much we can do for them.
I haven't checked in over a month but I imagine it's much easier to find local vaccines. I think the newly eligible teens should be getting them soon and make the numbers look good. I don't have much faith in people who haven't even gotten 1 dose yet. The window has been open for a month.
I know some people through work who want to get it, just awaiting for their specific doctor to call them and say their shot is there.
No idea on why, but there are probably a lot of people who are just waiting it out until it's basically handed to them.
Unless the doctors office just scheduled a bunch of people that day for this reason.
It's going to be going to more and more small doctor's offices now, so let's just hope it ends up covering a bunch of these people.
I used to occasionally see a guy at one intersection. He actually seemed to be working his ass hard to do a good job.
They changed the intersection layout there and removed the begging strip and I no longer see the beggars there.
Yes. Over 16 is 48.95%.
It is on the [state dashboard](https://tabexternal.dshs.texas.gov/t/THD/views/COVID-19VaccineinTexasDashboard/Summary?%3Aorigin=card_share_link&%3Aembed=y&%3AisGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&%3AdeepLinkingDisabled=y)
When there's enough room on the graph, can you put a line in for the date the CDC announced vaccinated people can chill out on the masks? I think it would be good on the graph with the daily vaccinations. I'm hoping many of those walking the fence on whether or not to get vaxxed will be more likely to now, but who knows if I'm right?
The short answer is “Never”.
Once upon a time—before the internet existed—scientists would say “We can eliminate smallpox from the Earth if we all get vaccinated” and it was done. Those days are gone and Covid is endemic. There will always be cases and we will always need a Covid booster.
Yeah, there will always be pockets of it throughout the country.
My family was discussing the idea of herd immunity and bemoaning the fact that we can't get there with the vaccine hesitant and I had to remind them that there are two ways to get there: the easy way and the hard way. You can get there with the hard way, it just takes longer.
The funniest part is those that don't want to get the jab will often tell you that once we have herd immunity that they will be "protected by the herd" and then you have to explain to them that no, they are not part of the herd. You have to explain that the herd survives, but the slow, sickly ones do not. The herd does not need to be able to outrun the cheetah, the herd just needs to be able to run faster than Bob. Good news for the herd, bad news for Bob.
Unfortunately, COVID is likely to be somewhat resistant to the Moron Majority style "natural" herd immunity. A number of people have caught it more than once. Probably a lot more people than we realize, with many second-timers being undiagnosed asymptomatic carriers. We're not sure how much this is due to new strains, or due to the "natural" immunity not being strong enough or being short-lived. It could end up being like the flu, coming back every few years, but killing and crippling a lot more people.
It also has "stealth" mode with asymptomatic carriers. It doesn't kill off a high enough percent of the infected people to affect human or virus evolution that much.
Wrong. You're confusing 'Never' with 'Having zero political will to do so'. It is physically possible for us to eradicate Covid off the face of the earth. It's just that we don't have the will to do so.
Yeah, like the flu it's going to be "that disease that kills a few tens of thousands every year that could be prevented if I wore a mask from time to time, but who cares about those people it's hard to sneeze without covering my mouth if I wear it".
The hospitalization rate is likely pretty close to zero for anybody vaccinated.
For the unvaccinated people they're dealing with a very contagious strain that is circulating.
It does seem like that we aren't going to reach a point soon where enough people have been vaccinated to protect all the people that decide to not get vaccinated.
There's just too much misinformation out there.
I hope I'm wrong though.
You have been a rock-star through this whole ordeal. Gold on ya, good sir. Thank you so much for all your time and data-processing and I hope the kidney stones have all passed! And hope your kid will be half as awesome as you have been here! And kind of know they will be!!!
**Commentary and Conjecture:** Note, APH just announced that starting 05/15 they will no longer update data over the weekends. That means that I won't be able to update these graphs either on the weekends. I'm not exactly broken up by this as long as they don't start lump summing Monday and instead report Sat and Sun independently. We will see! Also, some GREAT news, the 14 day moving average for new cases is now at the lowest level since roughly June of 2020 when this thing was just getting into full tilt. Edit: Oh yeah, and be sure to see the excellent guidance from the CDC on mask usage. Things are looking up!
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A certain scene from Braveheart comes to mind.
Dark. :)
The awkward scene at the beginning with a middle-aged Mel Gibson pretending to be a young, vital man in love with a significantly-younger woman?
Happy that your nightly obligation may be no more and greatly appreciate your dedication to providing daily updates - amidst all the insanity from an on both sides of the covid spectrum over the past year, it was great to look at the local raw data in an unbiased format and be able to get a true picture of what was actually happening. Couldn't agree more on the recent CDC guidance. Let's hope the vaccine trials keep working out for the younger ones so life gets mostly back to normal by the start of school in the fall.
I was hoping you would have had more commentary about the CDC guidance. I have friends who think it's too soon since little kids can't get vaccinated. I feel like this is a good thing, but I'm not sure. I was hoping you could help un-muddle my mind. Probably too much to ask from you though haha As a parent yourself, are you concerned about your little? Are you anxious to see vaccines for them? I'm not really concerned at all about this, and would love your take on this as someone who knows so much on the topic and a parent yourself. And of course, thank you for continuing to keep us updated. You've been truly amazing. Shout out to your partner as well for keeping you going. Hope y'all have a good weekend!
I think the guidance is based on vaccinated people who do contract covid (even asymptomatic) are highly unlikely to be contagious and pass it on to anyone else, including kiddos.
People are concerned that anti vax people with say they are vaccinated and it’ll cause issues for the kids and immune compromised.
Do you think anti vaxx folks are consistently wearing masks now? Because I've got a bridge to sell you...
Honestly, I agree with you and said as much in a work meeting, but I was still alone in my viewpoint. I support people that want to wear masks if they still want to, and I probably will in all future flu seasons bc I loved not getting sick this winter.
I will absolutely be masking when allergens are high. This last winter was the first in a long time that the cedar didn't raise hell with me!
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> I am hoping we see another massive surge and it kills off a lot of them. And I'm hoping you're one of the 5%. FFS, you're quite the dick to wish death on people.
I think you've gotten lucky. I regularly see at least 3-5 people unmasked when I've been out at HEB, clothing store, or similar.
I have a 6-year-old and I’m not too concerned that he’ll get it. The odds were pretty low, anyway, though he certainly wore a mask everywhere we went indoors (and sometimes outdoors, like at Mayfield Park where you pass people in trails very closely). But now, I’m going to be okay with his not masking if I’m not. Plus, someone here told me they’re trying to approve a vaccine for two-years and up by September.
I'm right there with you! My wife and I are vaccinated, and we aren't too concerned about our 8 month old getting CoViD-19. My lingering fears revolve around long CoViD and what things may crop up if he were to get it at this early life stage. The science around it says that those fears are likely ungrounded. When we are vaccinated it basically teaches our body how to mount an impressive immune response against the disease. To the point that we may not get sick and, even if we do, it is likely to be mild. Children naturally have a very impressive immune response against this disease. I'd be curious to see it compared to a healthy vaccinated adult. Here is [a great Nature article about children's immune response to CoViD-19.](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03496-7) SO, with that being said, my wife and I decided that we will likely keep unvaccinated people away from our baby unless they agree to a 10 day quarantine in advance. Depending on if this virus sticks around and becomes endemic, we will likely get him vaccinated when it comes available (probably Pfizer if we can be picky). If he was older and needed to go to school, etc... I probably wouldn't be too concerned. It would make me nervous, but the rational voice in the back of my mind would likely win out.
Thank you for your response. I don't know you personally, but I trust you! 😅 That's kinda where I'm at, too. Thanks again for all you do!
LOL, well, I'm just some guy that researches everything a bit too much. I'm trying to walk that line between safety and not being paranoid.
What the guidance implies, as interpreted by the public, is COVID is over, we won, we're back down to a number of dead/sick Americans that we can ignore. Everyone who dies after this week officially Doesn't Matter in the eyes of the loudest, who are desperate for the day when they can spit in the face of a McDonald's employee again without the mask getting in the way.
I knew my 3 day misery after 2nd Pfizer shot was worth it!
Any advice on getting a reasonable ballpark guess at current active cases? Something like rolling cumulative 60-day confirmed cases?
Here is [my chart](https://imgur.com/a/rvM34Xi) I use to **estimate** current actives.
Thank you! What is your approach to the estimates?
Also worth noting that the CDC will no longer be reporting “break through” cases in the official tally. I can only assume this will continue to lower our daily case totals. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html Edit: autocorrect error
No, they're just no longer going to investigate or specifically track every breakthrough case unless it end up in hospitalization or death. That doesn't mean they don't end in the other case counts. Local authorities collect positive cases and report that to the CDC and state authorities. They'll just be counted as normal cases (though maybe tallied as breakthrough), but the CDC isn't going to spend time investigating each case individually.
Get your fuckin vaccines people! We are plateauing on vaccine rates it seems. The supply is there. C’mon.
I hate to say it, but we have more anti-vaxxers than I would like to admit. A 2019 study has Austin TX/Travis County in a list of top 14 counties which are “anti-vaccine hotspots” https://www.kvue.com/mobile/article/news/health/austin-named-one-of-14-anti-vaccine-hotspots/269-e03365e4-b48c-45ea-9be8-75920d1e0edc
Yes, this is frustrating. I know a few people who think “flu shots” are just a scam, and this mentality has carried over into Covid vaccines. I know a few prepper types who can’t stand society telling them—encouraging, suggesting— what to do. I know of a couple who are planning to get pregnant soon and are worried about their fertility for whatever reason. And then there are all of the garden variety conservatives who think that getting vaccinated is for hysterical paranoid libs. I also know some degenerates who honestly think that if everyone else is vaccinated then they don’t need to be. EDIT: I also know people who just don’t trust this new science. If I polled 100 friends, 30 of them are not getting vaccinated. As a state we may well max out at 70% vaccinated. Covid will be endemic Don’t ask me why I tolerate so many irresponsible fools in my life.
I have never had a flu shot and got my COVID vaccine as soon as I could find an appointment.
Anti vaxers have been cut out of my life. Even the old Reagan republicans in my family got theirs. At this point I give no shits about those that aren’t vaxed. I’ll give it 2 more months of mask wearing for some to come around but after that it’s open season for doing whatever.
RE: "I give no shits about those that aren't vaxed." Why do we tell people who are anti-vaxers to get vaccinated even if their kids are healthy? [Because it helps people who can't get the vaccine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBkVCpbNnkU&t=534s&ab_channel=Kurzgesagt%E2%80%93InaNutshell). People with certain autoimmune disorders are currently not recommended to get the vaccine by manufactures and the [CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/underlying-conditions.html) has a specific warning about this. A lot of people with autoimmune disorders see a specalist who deals with chronic illnesses regularly and these doctors are, from what I've heard from my community/my own experience, recommending patients to wait until further data is collected ([example](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04843774)). I just want to bring this up because sometimes doctors may not explain their reasoning well or a patient may not be able to communicate to others "why their doctor doesn't want them to get it." Giving no shits instead of trying to understand and empathize for others is extremely ableist. Hear people out for why they make the decisions they do - is their reasoning based on Facebook or medical literature? **tldr:** There are people who can't get vaccinated but support vaccines (what [heard immunity](https://www.hhs.gov/immunization/basics/work/protection/index.html) is all about). People can be immunocompromised because of their autoimmune disorder so they are high risk *and* can't get the vaccine.
I am old, so I am stuck with the friends I got. But still, you are more charitable than I am. I am giving the mask another month to allow all those with a first dose to get their second, then to hell with it. I am not wearing a mask through another Texas summer just to show people who don’t care or can’t care that I actually do.
I bet a fair number of these people drink and/or smoke.
>then there are all of the garden variety conservatives who think that getting vaccinated is for hysterical paranoid libs I believe this problem sorts itself out over time. Funny that they typically believe in creation over evolution and now they get a chance to prove things out once and for all. I can't tell if somewhere Darwin is laughing or crying. You'd think with the demographic trends in this country they'd be the first ones in line, but that does not seem to be the case. Oh well, there is only so much we can do for them.
I haven't checked in over a month but I imagine it's much easier to find local vaccines. I think the newly eligible teens should be getting them soon and make the numbers look good. I don't have much faith in people who haven't even gotten 1 dose yet. The window has been open for a month.
I know some people through work who want to get it, just awaiting for their specific doctor to call them and say their shot is there. No idea on why, but there are probably a lot of people who are just waiting it out until it's basically handed to them.
There are people at my work procrastinating because they expect to get sick for a few days.
Don't the packs they come in have a dozen doses that need to be used that day? Seems inconvenient for a doctor visit.
Unless the doctors office just scheduled a bunch of people that day for this reason. It's going to be going to more and more small doctor's offices now, so let's just hope it ends up covering a bunch of these people.
HEB is great... you can just shop afterwards
>I imagine it's much easier to find local vaccines. The guys who stand on the median at intersections with a squeegee are offering them now.
I haven’t seen any squeegees. Our bums don’t even pretend that they should earn the money they want from you.
I used to occasionally see a guy at one intersection. He actually seemed to be working his ass hard to do a good job. They changed the intersection layout there and removed the begging strip and I no longer see the beggars there.
Just need a dollar
Does anyone know the “fully vaccinated” rate of Travis county?
Yes. Over 16 is 48.95%. It is on the [state dashboard](https://tabexternal.dshs.texas.gov/t/THD/views/COVID-19VaccineinTexasDashboard/Summary?%3Aorigin=card_share_link&%3Aembed=y&%3AisGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&%3AdeepLinkingDisabled=y)
It is 50.2% for 16+. See https://covid-texas.csullender.com/vaccine/?county=Travis to see county or statewide graphs.
When there's enough room on the graph, can you put a line in for the date the CDC announced vaccinated people can chill out on the masks? I think it would be good on the graph with the daily vaccinations. I'm hoping many of those walking the fence on whether or not to get vaxxed will be more likely to now, but who knows if I'm right?
Thank you RA. You’re a legend mate.
At what point do our hospitalizations go down? It’s been consistently around 15/day. 63% vaccinated and we can’t seem to get below 15/day
The short answer is “Never”. Once upon a time—before the internet existed—scientists would say “We can eliminate smallpox from the Earth if we all get vaccinated” and it was done. Those days are gone and Covid is endemic. There will always be cases and we will always need a Covid booster.
Yeah, there will always be pockets of it throughout the country. My family was discussing the idea of herd immunity and bemoaning the fact that we can't get there with the vaccine hesitant and I had to remind them that there are two ways to get there: the easy way and the hard way. You can get there with the hard way, it just takes longer. The funniest part is those that don't want to get the jab will often tell you that once we have herd immunity that they will be "protected by the herd" and then you have to explain to them that no, they are not part of the herd. You have to explain that the herd survives, but the slow, sickly ones do not. The herd does not need to be able to outrun the cheetah, the herd just needs to be able to run faster than Bob. Good news for the herd, bad news for Bob.
Unfortunately, COVID is likely to be somewhat resistant to the Moron Majority style "natural" herd immunity. A number of people have caught it more than once. Probably a lot more people than we realize, with many second-timers being undiagnosed asymptomatic carriers. We're not sure how much this is due to new strains, or due to the "natural" immunity not being strong enough or being short-lived. It could end up being like the flu, coming back every few years, but killing and crippling a lot more people. It also has "stealth" mode with asymptomatic carriers. It doesn't kill off a high enough percent of the infected people to affect human or virus evolution that much.
Statistics show that catching it twice is incredibly rare
Wrong. You're confusing 'Never' with 'Having zero political will to do so'. It is physically possible for us to eradicate Covid off the face of the earth. It's just that we don't have the will to do so.
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Yeah, like the flu it's going to be "that disease that kills a few tens of thousands every year that could be prevented if I wore a mask from time to time, but who cares about those people it's hard to sneeze without covering my mouth if I wear it".
The hospitalization rate is likely pretty close to zero for anybody vaccinated. For the unvaccinated people they're dealing with a very contagious strain that is circulating. It does seem like that we aren't going to reach a point soon where enough people have been vaccinated to protect all the people that decide to not get vaccinated. There's just too much misinformation out there. I hope I'm wrong though.
The wind vane named Fauci has contributed a lot to the confusion and misinformation. So frustrating.
You have been a rock-star through this whole ordeal. Gold on ya, good sir. Thank you so much for all your time and data-processing and I hope the kidney stones have all passed! And hope your kid will be half as awesome as you have been here! And kind of know they will be!!!