Abbott off mark with recovery comment

The claim: “The number of Texans who have RECOVERED from #COVID19 now exceeds the number of active COVID cases for the past 2 days. That’s exactly what we want to see. Texas ranks 3rd highest among states for number of people who have recovered from #coronavirus.” — Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott

Abbott made the claim on Twitter May 4, ahead of his announcement that Texas would commence the second phase of its reopening after a statewide stay-at-home order had lifted.

PolitiFact rating: Half True. The available figures on cumulative COVID-19 recoveries by state show that Texas ranked third at the time Abbott made the statement — but that data has limitations.

A better metric for comparison is the recovery rate of the virus,

given Texas’ population size. Using this measure, Texas ranks 16th among those states with data. Abbott’s statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details.

Discussion: Recovery statistics are not a factor that indicate a state’s readiness to reopen, according to guidelines from the White House.

The guidelines, released in April, highlight certain criteria states should meet before opening: a downward trajectory of COVID-19 or flu-like symptoms, a downward trajectory of positive tests as a percent of total tests and a robust testing program for

healthcare workers, including antibody testing.

“Recovery, even if it were measured properly, does not reflect interventions because we have almost none,” said Dr. Myron Cohen, director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Medicine. “Such statistics are generally used to measure the success of a health care system when testing and treatments might be robust.”

The raw counts of recovered cases available show that Texas did rank third as of May 4, but there is a lot to unpack with this data. Abbott’s office did not return a request for comment seeking information about the data behind his statement.

The main difficulty in weighing the statement is the quality of the data on recoveries. Fourteen states do not have current recovery data.

There are also different definitions for what it means to have recovered from COVID-19.

In Texas, the number of patients recorded as recovered is an estimate “based on several assumptions related to hospitalization rates and recovery times, which were informed by data available to date. These assumptions are subject to change as we learn more about COVID-19,” according to the state’s coronavirus dashboard.

But even using the limited data available, there is also the size of the state’s population to consider.

Given that Texas is the second most populous state, it makes more sense to consider the rate of recovery by state — the number of people who have recovered from COVID-19 relative to the total number of those infected — than the total number of recoveries.

At the time of Abbott’s claim, nearly half of all people who tested positive for coronavirus had been reported as recovered — a recovery rate of 49.76 percent.

Using this figure to compare across the 37 states and Washington D.C. that have recovery data, Texas ranks 16th using this measure.

Montana has the highest recovery rate, as more than 88 percent of the 457 people who tested positive have been reported as recovered.