# Just As Houston Reopens It Is The Next Hot Spot



## fmdog44 (May 22, 2020)

The confusion continues to mount. Houston started the reopening process this week at the same time it is being called one of the next hot spots for the virus. Comedy writers for the show Mash could not be this comical.


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## In The Sticks (May 22, 2020)

But daggone it, there is no sense of proportion on this.

The #infected nationwide with COVID is not much more than the number infected per state (on average) with the Swine Flu.

What "hot spot"????


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## Ken N Tx (May 23, 2020)

fmdog44 said:


> The confusion continues to mount. Houston started the reopening process this week at the same time it is being called one of the next hot spots for the virus. Comedy writers for the show Mash could not be this comical.


It won't be long, I predict the coastal areas will be up there after this holiday week end..


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## CarolfromTX (May 23, 2020)

There have been 15,000 cases in Harris County, which has a population of 1,700,000. That's .86 percent. Less than a percent. Important to keep that in mind.


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## In The Sticks (May 23, 2020)

CarolfromTX said:


> There have been 15,000 cases in Harris County, which has a population of 1,700,000. That's .86 percent. Less than a percent. Important to keep that in mind.


Swine Flu infected 16%, yet we're allowing our lives to be destroyed for less than 1%.


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## Happyflowerlady (May 23, 2020)

fmdog44 said:


> The confusion continues to mount. Houston started the reopening process this week at the same time it is being called one of the next hot spots for the virus. Comedy writers for the show Mash could not be this comical.



There is always a waiting time from getting exposed, getting  infected with a virus, and it getting bad enough that you go and see a doctor, and then getting tested, and waiting for the tests to come back to tell whether you are testing positive or negative. 
So, it seems to me , that if they are just now opening the city of Houston, and having an uptick of virus, all at the same time, that most of these people had to have already been exposed to the virus at least a week ahead of the city opening up.


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## StarSong (May 23, 2020)

In The Sticks said:


> Swine Flu infected 16%, yet we're allowing our lives to be destroyed for less than 1%.


There is no telling how many deaths were avoided because nearly the entire planet shut down in response to the urging of scientists, doctors, and epidemiologists.   

If millions survived, even though they were predicted to starve to death during a terrible drought, because the world intervened with food and other support, would you call the original prediction a hoax or would you recognize that the response changed the outcome?


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## In The Sticks (May 23, 2020)

StarSong said:


> There is no telling how many deaths were avoided because nearly the entire planet shut down in response to the urging of scientists, doctors, and epidemiologists.
> 
> If millions survived, even though they were predicted to starve to death during a terrible drought, because the world intervened with food and other support, would you call the original prediction a hoax or would you recognize that the response changed the outcome?


Food and other support have a provable direct effect.  This does not.

You can always say "It would have been worse if..."  but that's never provable.  The response is disproportionate to the threat.  If it's not, then why not this response ever before when we had tens of millions infected?

The real question is if flu seasons see between 9,000,000 and 55,000,000 infections (per CDC data), then why the media hype and hysteria over 1,500,000 instead of the celebration you cite?  It is all contrived.


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## RadishRose (May 23, 2020)

I don't believe it's all hype. I think we should be very cautious while going ahead. There are still facets of this virus that remain unknown.


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## In The Sticks (May 23, 2020)

RadishRose said:


> I don't believe it's all hype. I think we should be very cautious while going ahead. There are still facets of this virus that remain unknown.


All I know is that there were over 30x more infected with other flus and we didn't know everything about them and the world did not stop.

How can less than 1/2 of 1% infected do this to us?   Think about that.  One half of one percent, and look at the self-inflected destruction, because of what we DON'T know?


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## C'est Moi (May 23, 2020)

fmdog44 said:


> The confusion continues to mount. Houston started the reopening process this week at the same time it is being called one of the next hot spots for the virus. Comedy writers for the show Mash could not be this comical.


Where did you get this information?  I have not heard anything about Houston being a "hot spot."


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## C'est Moi (May 23, 2020)

CarolfromTX said:


> There have been 15,000 cases in Harris County, which has a population of 1,700,000. That's .86 percent. Less than a percent. Important to keep that in mind.


The population of Harris County is close to 5 million.  (Houston metro area is over 6 million.)


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## RadishRose (May 23, 2020)

I throw up my hands.


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## In The Sticks (May 23, 2020)

RadishRose said:


> I throw up my hands.


Yeh, we're gonna disagree on this, I'm afraid.


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## fmdog44 (May 24, 2020)

C'est Moi said:


> Where did you get this information?  I have not heard anything about Houston being a "hot spot."


The local news last week I watch channel 2 mostly.


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## oldman (May 24, 2020)

C'est Moi said:


> The population of Harris County is close to 5 million.  (Houston metro area is over 6 million.)


Well, that knocks it down to.003% of the County population. That’s a hot spot?


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## Lakeland living (May 24, 2020)

Ken N Tx said:


> It won't be long, I predict the coastal areas will be up there after this holiday week end..


We just went through a long weekend up here in Canada, a road trip of less than two hours showed me how many were
completely ignoring distancing ,never mind leaving the big city to come up here.
  So far this week ontario keeps getting more and more cases.
  I plan to be here for at least a couple of weeks more.


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## C'est Moi (May 24, 2020)

oldman said:


> Well, that knocks it down to.003% of the County population. That’s a hot spot?


I think the dipshit mayor was commenting on certain areas of town being local hot spots.  A couple of homeless shelters and some poor areas of town have higher incidents of the virus.  I have not heard anything about the City of Houston being a national hot-spot.  We are so spread out that it would totally surprise me to hear such a thing.


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## Aunt Bea (May 24, 2020)

IMO the important number is the hospital capacity to handle an uptick in cases.

New York State is attempting to maintain a 30% excess capacity.

I'm not sure if that is the right number but it makes sense to try to match the hospital capacity to the number of new hospitalizations/intubations.

When that excess capacity begins to shrink it is time to slow down, tighten controls, etc...

https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/tmc-icu-bed-capacity-modeling/


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## garyt1957 (May 25, 2020)

CarolfromTX said:


> There have been 15,000 cases in Harris County, which has a population of 1,700,000. That's .86 percent. Less than a percent. Important to keep that in mind.


But those are confirmed cases. The real number is likely much higher.


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## garyt1957 (May 25, 2020)

I'm still amazed that there are people out there who think this is some kind of hoax or overreaction. How do you even get to that place?


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## In The Sticks (May 25, 2020)

oldman said:


> Well, that knocks it down to.003% of the County population. That’s a hot spot?


Sadly, it's whatever the media drumbeat says it is.


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## CarolfromTX (May 25, 2020)

CarolfromTX said:


> There have been 15,000 cases in Harris County, which has a population of 1,700,000.
> 
> Oops! My bad. Population is actually 4.71 million folks, which makes it an even tinier percentage of people there who have a confirmed case.


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## oldman (May 25, 2020)

I saw where Brazil is going to be the next Hot Spot!


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## StarSong (May 25, 2020)

oldman said:


> I saw where Brazil is going to be the next Hot Spot!


Brazil's president was full of false bravado when COVID started to hit his country.  He referred to it as a media trick and "a little flu."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...naro-says-coronavirus-crisis-is-a-media-trick

His country is paying a very high price for his foolishness.


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## Floridatennisplayer (May 25, 2020)

See how easily hysteria gets started!  This post is a perfect example.


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## IrisSenior (May 25, 2020)

Oh I don't have hysteria.

You all do what you are comfortable with and I will just wait and see how things go. In the end time always tells.


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## fmdog44 (May 25, 2020)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/me...trolled-coronavirus-outbreaks-study-says/ss-B
*. Texas*
As hundreds of people recently gathered at the state's capital to protest, calling for restrictions to be lifted, some models are predicting that Texas will see cases surge as soon as next month. For example, Harris County, which includes Houston, *could see 2,000+ cases every day come this June.* "We're not equipped to handle that type of surge," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said, according to KSAT. The state has 54,509 confirmed cases and 1,506 deaths as of May 25th. Texas is at the top of the study's list of those at "highest risk."


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## oldman (May 25, 2020)

Floridatennisplayer said:


> See how easily hysteria gets started!  This post is a perfect example.


No, I didn’t read any hysteria, but maybe your definition is different than mine.


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## fmdog44 (May 25, 2020)

oldman said:


> Well, that knocks it down to.003% of the County population. That’s a hot spot?


You are comparing the ratio of the number of infected to the population instead of the number of infected daily.


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## Floridatennisplayer (May 25, 2020)

fmdog44 said:


> https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/me...trolled-coronavirus-outbreaks-study-says/ss-B
> *. Texas*
> As hundreds of people recently gathered at the state's capital to protest, calling for restrictions to be lifted, some models are predicting that Texas will see cases surge as soon as next month. For example, Harris County, which includes Houston, *could see 2,000+ cases every day come this June.* "We're not equipped to handle that type of surge," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said, according to KSAT. The state has 54,509 confirmed cases and 1,506 deaths as of May 25th. Texas is at the top of the study's list of those at "highest risk."


Could see


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## Lethe200 (May 25, 2020)

In The Sticks said:


> Food and other support have a provable direct effect.  This does not.
> 
> You can always say "It would have been worse if..."  but that's never provable.  The response is disproportionate to the threat.  If it's not, then why not this response ever before when we had tens of millions infected?
> 
> The real question is if flu seasons see between 9,000,000 and 55,000,000 infections (per CDC data), then why the media hype and hysteria over 1,500,000 instead of the celebration you cite?  It is all contrived.



I disagree. Looking at the three successive waves of Spanish Flu, lockdowns and mask wearing had a DEFINITE effect. It's acknowledged that 'mask fatigue' had set in so that people failed to take the same precautions when the second wave started. For this reason, *most of the deaths from Spanish Flu occurred in the second wave, not the first.*

The threat of infection from the SARS-COV2 coronavirus is much higher than influenza viruses. Flu virus infection tends to be 1=.1 due to vaccines. COVID-19 infection is 1=2.5, meaning each person infected will infect more than 2 people, who in turn also infect people, and so on. It is MUCH more infectious, all the more so because the heaviest viral shedding appears to be 3-4 days *before *a person shows symptoms - and many people show few, if any symptoms at all.

Also, COVID-19 has an inflammatory effect upon many people, which they think is due to a genetic disposition. Thus, although children rarely show symptoms, a small but distinct group of pre-puberty age children are suffering cardiac failures. Young adults, also a small but geographically dispersed group, have developed Kawasaki-type syndrome, confounding medical staff as Kawasaki is not only rarely seen in children, but heretofore has never been seen in the age group 19-25 until now.

One reason they celebrate those people who are on ventilators but eventually survive? Because* the mortality rate for those on ventilators is over 90%. *


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## C'est Moi (May 25, 2020)

Floridatennisplayer said:


> Could see


The sky is falling.


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## Ken N Tx (May 26, 2020)

C'est Moi said:


> ..The sky is falling.


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## Sunny (May 26, 2020)

> The response is disproportionate to the threat.... How can less than 1/2 of 1% infected do this to us?   Think about that.  One half of one percent, and look at the self-inflected destruction, because of what we DON'T know?



"In the Sticks," maybe you should try asking that of parents who have just lost a child to that cardiac syndrome brought on by the virus? Or the families of loved parents and grandparents who have died a horrible, lonely death? 

This is not about juggling statistics to prove the point you want to prove. It is about a heartbreaking, worldwide tragedy.

But even if it is about the statistics, 1/2 of 1% is a hell of a lot of people.


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## fmdog44 (May 26, 2020)

We will see 100,000 dead Americans this week.


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## fmdog44 (May 26, 2020)

Floridatennisplayer said:


> Could see


Care to wager?


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## fmdog44 (May 26, 2020)

C'est Moi said:


> The sky is falling.


The highest rates of illness as of Sunday were in the following counties: 05/26/20

*Harris County: 10,770 cases*
Dallas County: 8,649 cases
Tarrant County: 4,951 cases
Travis County: 2,788cases
Bexar County: 2,418 cases
El Paso County: 2,340 cases
Potter County: 2,238 cases
Fort Bend County: 1,676 cases
Denton County: 1,212 cases
Collin County: 1,136 cases


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## Liberty (May 26, 2020)

fmdog and others, perhaps this statement about Texas opening up will better quantify it:

As he makes decisions about how quickly to restart the Texas economy, Abbott has zeroed in on two figures: the state's infection rate — the ratio of positive cases to tests conducted — and the hospitalization rate — the proportion of infected Texans who are requiring hospitalization. Both rates have generally trended downward since high points in the first half of April.

"All the key metrics are going in the right direction, and that is exactly why the doctors advised us that we had the green light to open up to the extent we are opening up," Abbott said in an interview with The Texas Tribune on Thursday evening, shortly after the latest case figures came out.


As for the deaths, Abbott said any death is tragic and that is why his latest order advises the population most vulnerable to the virus — those 65 and older — to remain at home except for essential activities. He pointed out that, "even with today's number, we have one one of the lowest deaths per capita in any state in America."

Abbott's focus on those numbers has been backed up by his medical advisers and affirmed by other experts focused on the pandemic, such as Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.


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## C'est Moi (May 26, 2020)

fmdog44 said:


> The highest rates of illness as of Sunday were in the following counties: 05/26/20
> 
> *Harris County: 10,770 cases*
> Dallas County: 8,649 cases
> ...



Yes, like all other states, the counties with the _highest _population have the _highest_ number of cases. What a revelation.


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## Ken N Tx (May 26, 2020)

C'est Moi said:


> Yes, like all other states, the counties with the _highest _population have the _highest_ number of cases. What a revelation.


Ditto.... Texas has the second largest population of all States..


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## C'est Moi (May 26, 2020)

Ken N Tx said:


> Ditto.... Texas has the second largest population of all States..


I only recently learned that Texas has more people than Australia.  Sheesh.


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