TEXAS CORONAVIRUS UPDATE AS OF 2021/1/23

 

UPDATE: Please check an update to this chart for February 26, 2021

https://californiaswansong.blogspot.com/2021/02/texas-coronavirus-update-as-of-february.html

The daily hospitalizations have settled down, from what I can tell. I didn't check every day, but spot checked a couple of dates. I don't know what the reason was for the change.  Probably Texas DHS were re-defining a few things.  I could ask them.  I have their email address and they do respond to my questions, which is very nice.

Like I mentioned before in a prior update to a post, the daily deaths have been slowly rising.  Nothing like it was in the beginning.  The conclusions regarding this have not changed.  A treatment protocol by now has been established - no more shots in the dark.  Also, there is herd immunity.  I add herd immunity because the virus had established itself as highly contagious. Refer to the chart to see the rapid rise in deaths and hospitalizations in late May onward.  But now, the rise in deaths (slope) is far far slower. We can imply from this that the virus has lost some of its potency.

If you look to the far right of the chart, I show a smooth gradiated shaded area.  I still use the cutoff point for reliable data of a change in deaths of less than 10 on the latest day, but I add an additional week to capture outliers. I gradiated it because it was unclear if the added weak should be counted or not.  I didn't want to blot it out entirely. But for sure, they are MORE up to date than the last few weeks/days.

The last few days show the daily hospitalizations topping out (see dashed oval in chart).  We need to see a few more weeks of data to determine if we have an actual trend. 

Daily deaths are represented as a 7 day moving average for greater clarity.

Update on Texas Coronavirus statistics

I am still following the Texas coronavirus statistics. This Excel spreadsheet is directly available here: https://dshs.texas.gov/coronavirus/TexasCOVID19CaseCountData.xlsx 

My comments regarding these numbers so far are: 

1. I haven't gone back to look at it, but at some point in December or early January, the TDSHS updated the hospitalizations. The assumption early on was the hospitalization numbers were fixed and would not be updated. Well, that was not entirely correct. It looks like the numbers are fixed now.....for now. I can't determine what they will do in the future. 

 2. The daily fatalities are taking longer for them to completely update for any day. What looked like to me that daily deaths had flattened was not correct. They are slowly climbing. My calculations show the rate of deaths is at only one fourth the rate of the 2020 May/June time frame. Very....very slow. What I do now is add a week taking the date of incompleted data back a bit further to basically remove it from the analysis. I hated to do this because it delays any conclusion we can draw of what is ahead.  I think no conclusion is better than the wrong conclusion. 

3. My rough calculations for the rate of growth in daily hospitalizations show that it would take about four months for them to completely max out hospital bed utilization. That max-out date would bring us to the May/June timeframe. Just at the point we would probably start seeing a drop in hospitalizations and even daily fatalities.

Updated chart of Texas Coronavirus Daily Deaths and Daily Hospitalizations AS OF 2020/12/20

 

Click on the chart to get get a better view of the details

Significant update to chart located here: https://californiaswansong.blogspot.com/2021/01/update-on-texas-coronavirus-statistics.html

I have not updated the chart itself yet.  I will, probably in the next week or so.  

Update 2020/12/27

What we need now is a daily number expressing the daily median average for time spent in the hospital.

Update 2020/12/25

Comments on chart: I switched early on to using hospitalizations instead of cases.  The reasons for having a test done vary, and needs for testing are variable and change over time.  Also, the godawful accuracy of the tests leave much to be desired.

However, the numbers for hospitalizations remain fixed once recorded.  Unlike the daily deaths, the hospital stays, once recorded never change.  Also, the use of hospitalizations tells us a story that is worth considering.

The complete tally of daily deaths, since posting these as coronavirus deaths is an administrative procedure, can take two to three weeks to completely update for a particular day.  In fact, the tally can take up to a couple of months - but the updates that far back are in the single digits.

So, what I do is look at the change from day-to-day.  Once the change is less than 10, then I consider the deaths for that day to be updated, for charting purposes. 

So, let's see what the chart is telling us:

- The rise in hospitalizations has dramatically slowed.  This means one of two things - or both.  1) the idea of herd immunity is taking hold.  2) We are better at treating this disease thus reducing the need for hospitalizations. The slow growth also gives doctors and nurses more time to assess the correct treatment - a feed back loop. 

- The daily deaths has leveled.  Again, this tells us one of two things: 1) The disease is less likely to kill people due to herd immunity.  2) We are better able to treat patients that leads to their recovery.

- The rise in daily deaths is pulling away from the rise in hospitalizations. This is very significant. As you can see from the initial exposure, daily deaths rose at the same rate as the hospitalizations. I've waited a couple of weeks before mentioning this.  But the numbers are there and cannot be disputed. The most important thing this is telling us is what may come next:  daily deaths dropping.

- Possible DROP in daily deaths - I don't think this is a sure thing, but this is what I am optimistically expecting. I think at the most one more month of data will tell us where this is heading.

- What the data is asking is: Do we really need a vaccine? I think this is a question worth asking. As the virus loses its virulence and as we have developed ways to treat this disease, it looks to me, there may not be a need for vaccination.  Mass use of the vaccine now will possibly coincide with an already forgone conclusion of the demise of this disease.  We would have a false impression that the vaccine was the cure, when in actuality it was not. 

Living the Life of Riley....or not

 When we lived in Germany the first time in 2005-2006, we had Canadians living below us.  The husband was being paid in US Dollars and apparently, his salary and perks were very nice.  I, on the other hand, was getting paid in British Pounds.  The money would be deposited in my American Chase Bank account and would be converted to US dollars.

Below is a chart of the dollar against the British Pound. You’ll notice the Pound strengthened against the dollar the whole time we were there. 

So, everytime I got paid, I essentially got a raise!  The amount of dollars deposited into my American bank account got bigger and bigger each month!  It was sweet!  It was good news! If  you look at the clip of the GBPUSD chart, the rectangular area was the time I was in Germany with a couple of months at the beginning I was in the UK.

British Pound vs US Dollar

But…the bad news was our downstairs Canadian neighbor who was being paid in US Dollars saw his pay check shrink and shrink….and shrink against the Euro .  They had originally rented the ENTIRE downstairs.  But it became unaffordable, so they got rid of one side and lived in only one apartment, like we were.  Granted, it was certainly big enough for us, so I’m certain it was more than big enough for them.

The Canadian approached his German employer several times imploring them to allow his salary to be paid in euros, but they wouldn’t do it.  Even though it was becoming cheaper and cheaper for them to keep him!  How stupid!  Eventually, with funds becoming exhausted, he quit and got a job back in Canada.

Tale of the shrinking salary

Now fast forward to 2014 when I went to Seoul to work on a project as a contractor.  But this time  I was being paid in Euros. And....this time I wasn’t getting a raise.  I was getting a pay cut!! This is what the Euro was doing against the dollar then:

FXE Euro Fund

So, I found myself in the same boat as my Canadian friend. What was I to do?  There were three answers: 1) quit, 2) renegotiate a new higher salary…3) or get really smart.  So, I decided the last route first to see what I could do.

I figured I could “hedge” my salary.  I put money in a leveraged inverse Euro fund. So, even as my salary decreased each month, the money I put in the inverse leveraged fund…WENT UP!

The name of the fund is EUO.  I put some money into the fund through my brokerage account in August of 2014 (it may have been July).  And this is what the fund did:

Euro Proshares UltraShort Fund

It went up almost 22% in those months.  It’s a leveraged fund so that for every 1% the Euro when down in value, the EUO fund went UP 2%!!  Sweet!!!

What made the difference?

It was really, really easy. The one thing I had that was critical were good Elliott Wave Charts to guide me to what the future was going to hold.  Without that, I was shooting in the dark.

I have found Elliott Wave Theory to make the difference between crawling around in the dark and seeing a light at the end of the tunnel (or…did I just die?  Should I follow the light?)

The real moral of the story:

This taught me an important lesson.  I no longer had fear.  I could work anywhere in the world, get paid in any currency and not fear losing money. Now, when I work overseas, I can work hard and afterward, hit the pub, grab a beer....and enjoy the rich culture of where ever I am!!

California to secede?

 - Secession will be bankrolled by China

- Millions of illegal aliens will be recruited in their army

California Is a Cautionary Tale for America

From Reason website:

The governor and his party always view the private sector as a threat and the government as a solution. Yet everything our government touches turns into disaster. The government controls road and freeway construction, yet our roads are clogged, as state officials impose "road diets" that eliminate traffic lanes and focus on bicycle paths. They continue to squander billions of dollars on the High Speed Rail line to nowhere. California's public-sector pay deals are eye popping. Localities continually cut services so they can pay higher fees to the California Public Employees' Retirement System.

California schools used to be tops, but—despite significant growth in their budgets—have stagnant test scores. The state's educational bright spot has been its charter schools, which provide needed competition to traditional monopoly schools. Yet after Gov. Jerry Brown, a charter supporter, left office, the new crowd has passed teachers'-union-backed laws that restrict their growth and force poor kids to stay in rotten districts.

California isn't the only state with problems, but most of them are the result of government inefficiency and malfeasance. California just happens to have the biggest state government—and it's run almost entirely by lawmakers and other officials who refuse to consider non-government approaches. Their solutions are the same as ever: Just raise taxes on the "rich." 

Nevertheless, California's leaders brag that our state is the fifth-largest economy and that other states should emulate its model—from banning internal-combustion vehicles to limiting companies' ability to use contractors as workers. I look at the state's failures and crises and have to agree that California is more of a cautionary tale than a model. It's certainly not Detroit, but don't forget that 60 years ago Detroit was one of the nation's great cities.

Coincidence? I think not.

So, I was trying to understand the huge increase in coronavirus hospitalizations in Texas. And thought I would try to set up a timeline.

We know when and about how many people were involved in the George Floyd protests in Texas.  In Houston it was about 60,000 . If you included all the other cities, we're looking at maybe 65,000-70,000 total protesters along with thousands of police and sheriffs across the state.  Wikipedia did the yeoman's work of cataloging the numbers with dates.

There are a couple of things we can say about all of this from looking at the photos of the protesters: 1) not all were practicing safe distances and 2) not all were wearing masks.  So, you have a veritable viral minestrone soup mix with the coronavirus the chicken broth.  

Under normal situations, I wouldn't have thought twice about the consequences of such actions. And I'm sure many people who attended didn't really care.  It was the moment.  You had to live in the moment.  I completely understand.  But regardless of our feelings, the coronavirus doesn't give a rat's rear end. 

Viruses will do...what viruses will do.

So, to set up the timeline, this is what we know:

Statewide demonstrations started on or around June 2.  We use this date since this was the date of the gigantic protest in Houston.  There were others a few days earlier, some later. But Houston was Ground Zero.

Now we set up the timeline for the development of the coronavirus once infected:

a. June 2. Infections begin on day 0

b. June 6 Symptoms begin on day 4

c. June 12. Person with severe symptoms is hospitalized on day 10. 

The progress looks to be fairly rapid.

The data I am using is directly from the Texas government website that is tracking the spread of the virus. They conveniently have an updated spreadsheet that anyone can access and do their own analysis.

But here are the results.  And it is plain for everyone to see. The dates match up fairly closely to the inflection point of when the disease spread really started to take off in Texas.

 

Many protests started as early as May 30.  But it wasn't my objective to track all protests.  Just the major one here in Houston. 

I won't go into the other issues that this brings up.  My only objective is to show you that the protests were most assuredly the cause of the gigantic surge (dare I say wave?) of hospitalizations in Texas.

If there is one saving grace in this, it is that the protesting has most likely accelerated herd immunity in the state.