Texas finds itself at 635 deaths per million making it 32nd in the country when it comes to COVID-related deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
The project found that when it comes to COVID-19 data, people have been looking at decontextualized data, which is causing hysteria like children staying out of school and businesses shutting down.
Texas’ deaths and hospitalizations have not followed the same path as case increases and, instead, the state has stayed below 360 people per million in hospitals, which isn’t anywhere near increased case numbers.
“Texas still boasts a far greater record than Massachusetts and New York--less than half the death rate of Massachusetts, and less than 1/3 that of New York,” the commentary states, “hospitalizations never exceed 360/million (about 40% lower than Massachusetts', and 65% lower than New York's). Daily deaths/million peaked at 10/day/million--less than half those of Massachusetts, and 75% less than New York. Recently, Texas has seen a case "surge" and hospitalizations have surged, too. Despite this, deaths continue to decline, with Texas's deaths/day/million now lower than those of Massachusetts. Texas's unemployment rate has jumped back up to an unenviable 8.3%, 39th in the nation. While Texas retrenched during its summer peak, Florida did not.”
Since Sept. 15, there has been a significant increase in testing for COVID-19 at 55 percent, which has also led to an increase in positive cases, leading many to assume the country is heading into a third wave of infections and deaths.
Emily Burns with The Pragmatist writes that it’s important to put the new numbers into context so that people will make wise decisions regarding what to do about the pandemic. She writes that in May, cases were tracked at nearly the same as hospitalizations. She notes that deaths and hospitalizations are more reliable data when tracking than cases are.
With COVID-19 testing up 70 percent since the second wave, Burns points out that the surge in testing is responsible for the increased number of new cases seen across the nation, not an increased infection rate many have been led to believe.
