A health care worker tells a driver where to stop at a coronavirus testing station in Alpine. Photo credit: Sarah M. Vasquez for The Texas Tribune
The day before Texas began its first wave of business reopenings during the coronavirus pandemic, the latest figures from the state health department brought some grim news.
Another 50 Texans had died from the virus — the most in a day yet — and an additional 1,033 had tested positive — the third most in a day yet.
Gottlieb’s assessment, however, gets at a big asterisk: the state’s low testing numbers. While Texas has been slowly increasing its testing capacity — the state has averaged little over 15,000 tests per day for the past week in a state of 29 million people — there has not been the dramatic ramp-up that the governor has long promised.
Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at UT Health School of Public Health, said Texas has not administered enough tests to say with certainty that the state’s infection rate is cause for optimism.
Texas appears to be skipping ahead on White House guidance that says state should wait to begin their reopening process until they see a 14-day downward trajectory in new cases or the infection rate. Texas has not met either of those criteria, especially the former.
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Article URL : https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/30/texas-reopening-coronavirus-cases-spike/