Fort Worth, Tarrant County are worse off than Dallas on COVID. Where are our leaders?
We are the worst.
Tarrant County’s current coronavirus trajectory is now worse than Dallas’, according to a local university expert. At this rate, our hospitals will be full in two weeks.
Yet county officials and the health department took two holidays from giving warnings or counting cases Friday and Saturday. All we learned Sunday is that the hospital count is now up to 533 patients.
(Our public hospital never gets a day off. JPS Health Network had 99 patients Sunday, according to its daily recorded update at 817-702-9500, up from 74 a week ago.)
With Fort Worth, Arlington and Tarrant County staring down the barrel of a long holiday weekend and a dangerous week that the University of North Texas Health Science Center expert calls “alarming” and “very critical” to our safety, our public servants vanished from sight.
On any other Fourth of July, our lawmakers in Washington and Austin would be leading parades or shaking every hand alongside our well-paid county commissioners and sheriffs, city council members, school trustees and every elected or appointed public official down to the county Inspector of Hides.
Did you see or hear from any elected officials this weekend?
Did they show you how they’re wearing a face covering, how easy it is and how everyone else should, too?
Did they take time to tell you Tarrant County is in danger if we don’t cover our faces, stay 6 feet apart and cut out so much running around?
No.
That’s what has us trailing Dallas.
Dallas folks are taking coronavirus more seriously. They stay home more, according to the Google community mobility data used for the latest HSC Fort Worth COVID-19 report issued Friday.
“I honestly don’t have an answer for why Tarrant County is moving around more,” said Rajesh Nandy. He’s the epidemiologist and statistician doing all the math for local leaders as associate professor at the public health school.
Dallas slowed down faster after May’s disease-spreading outburst of bar reopenings, end-of-school parties, family gatherings and other indoor events where young people went unmasked.
Tarrant County residents are shopping more, dining out, gathering and going out more than in Dallas County, according to the data.
“It is more alarming in Tarrant County than Dallas right now,” Nandy said Friday.
(He did not take the day off.)
“We have to be very vigilant this weekend,” he said.
We now have a Texas mask order under state disaster laws, and we probably will for some time.
Might as well get used to wearing one.
This week is “very critical in whether it reverses the trend,” Nandy said.
“If not, we will have to take other measures. Our hospital system will soon be overloaded.”
The “flatten the curve” thing — that’s so three months ago.
But with acute-care cases spiraling among all ages in Tarrant County — even though the recovery rate is much higher — we’re on the verge of suspending elective surgeries again and needing temporary hospital facilities.
Yes, the current numbers show plenty of bed space. But they don’t tell the whole story, Nandy said.
“Tarrant County can handle more patients,” he said.
“But the velocity is higher. We will reach maximum capacity much sooner.”
Locally and nationally, the message is shifting from the old “wash your hands” and “flatten the curve.”
The new message is “learn to live with it.”
It’s clear that we are going to be living with this for months: case fluctuations, health orders, masks, phone alerts, limited indoor activity, mostly outdoor events and staying 6 feet apart.
This was no time to take a holiday.
Estimated active cases over time
Coronavirus daily active case estimates by local counties in the Dallas - Fort Worth metroplex, beginning April 8, 2020. Data provided by Texas Health and Human Services.
This story was originally published July 4, 2020 at 12:39 PM.
