With most state coronavirus statistical measures entering a fourth straight week of steady decline, Gov. Greg Abbott is signaling he may roll back some emergency restrictions imposed at the height of the summer surge.
In a response Monday night to concerns from workers in the battered restaurant industry, the Republican governor tweeted that new infections and hospitalizations from COVID-19 are waning, then added “I hope to provide updates next week about next steps.”
“Since my last orders in July, COVID numbers have declined — most importantly hospitalizations,” Abbott wrote.
The governor gave no indication what steps he might take next, and a spokesman did not respond to questions. But Abbott said recently he would consider allowing bars to reopen and restaurants to reopen further if current trends
Abbott on Aug. 19 tjold KXAS in Dallas that to loosen restrictions there’d need to be a downard trend in hospitalizations and a positive COVID-19 test rate below 10 percent for two weeks. The number dropped to 10.13 percent Tuesday, down from 24.5 percent in mid-August and the lowest since June 22. It’s been between 11 percent and 16 percent the last 2½ weeks.
Texas COVID-19 hospitalizations have declined the most significantly — 4,144 Tuesday, down from 10,893 on July 22 — but new cases, positive test rates, daily deaths and viral spread are all dropping. They are dropping enough that one Texas modeler, Spencer Fox of University of Texas at Austin, went so far as to say he thinks that Texas may have seen the worst of the pandemic — as long as people continue to wear masks and keep their guard up.
A number of other health experts warned against lifting restrictions, noting that the coming Labor Day weekend, the expected resumption of schools and seasonal weather changes have the potential to cause a resurgence like Texas experienced earlier in the summer. They also said the amount of transmission, although improved, is still way too high.
“I don’t want to be Debbie Downer, but we’ve been surprised before,” Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the UTHealth School of Public Health, said last Friday. “It’s a double-edged sword when things start looking better. The virus is still out there, but people think things can go back to normal.”
Troisi added that some experts are hesitant because of the state’s data reporting problems, because it’s possible some other issue will surface. Those problems include under testing, coding errors that caused backlogged results and combining positive diagnostic and antibody tests.
Chris Amos, a Baylor College of Medicine quantitative scientist, said “the timing could not be worse for rolling back.”
“Given the number who test positive reflect perhaps 10 times as many individuals who have not been tested but are positive,” said Amos, “there remains a large pool of individuals who can spread COVID-19 if they begin interacting with many others, and particularly if we allow large groups to start coming together again.”
Amos acknowledged that optimism about opening up is natural given the slowing of COVID-19’s spread. The spread is measured by a value, known as reproductivity, that suggests a slowing or growing of the virus. Over 1 means each infected person transmits it to an average of more than one person and the epidemic grows; under 1 means the virus is transmitted to less than one person and the epidemic won’t sustain itself.
The value for the state overall has been under 1 since July 20.
According to Amos’ calculations, if the state maintains the current trend, with the number around 0.87, it would take 38 days to reduce the COVID-19 burden by another 50 percent.
It’s important to keep reducing that burden before students resume in-person classes, Amos said. He and others advised against a one-size-fits-all approach.
“Not every community or county in Texas is experiencing the same burden of disease,” said Angela Clendenin, an epidemiologist with the Texas A&M School of Public Health. “In some places, it may be justified to roll back some restrictions whereas in others, it’d be ill-advised to do so. It will be critically important that rolling back restrictions does not send the message that we are somehow ‘all clear.’”
Down but creeping up
Areas of concern include Houston, where the numbers have been down for the past month but have been creeping up in recent days — the seven-day rolling average of cases has grown and spread has exceeded 1 the last three days, after 20 straight days below. Officials said it is too early to tell if the increases are just a blip or the start of a trend.
Either way, Baylor College of Medicine infectious disease specialist Dr. Peter Hotez calls the current situation “purgatory” — no longer the hell marked by sky-high levels of transmission and huge numbers of patients in hospitals and intensive-care units, but bad enough that people can’t return to a normal life and existence.”
Hotez, who urges tighter controls instead of rolling back, says he expects the case numbers to go back up as schools and colleges open. And although the spike after the Fourth of July wasn’t as big as the one after Memorial Day, he worries Labor Day will bring more more spread.
In the last month, however, the state’s metrics have steadily improved. In addition to the reduced spread and fewer hospitalizations, the rolling seven-day average of cases is down from more than 10,000 in mid-July to 4,753 this week; and the rolling average for daily deaths is down from more than 330 to about 150 this week.
Fox, the associate director at the University of Texas-Austin COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, attributes the improvement to individual behavior, local or state policies and perhaps even some limited immunity having effect as the disease has spread to a more significant portion of the population.
A report issued by the consortium last week showed the virus’ spread was declining — that is, the value is under 1 — in all of the state’s trauma service areas. It also found each area’s risk of exceeding general hospital capacity is now below 10 percent.
“The situation is really improving pretty dramatically in almost all regions across the state,” said Fox. “We need to monitor the situation closely and not let our guard down. Hopefully, we’ve seen the worst of it — that at any sign of resurgence officials will do what’s necessary to stem increases and people will react to avoid a return of the situation we’ve been in.”
