Surge might be tapering off in Houston
A month after Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo issued her order mandating that businesses require customers wear masks, indications are emerging that the novel coronavirus’ surge in the Houston area may be starting to taper off.
The improvement is reflected in a number of recent trends — a plateau, then decline, in Texas Medical Center hospitalizations; a drop in the positive diagnostic test rate in the metro area; and a downward trajectory in the amount of viral spread in the community. The improvement follows a postFourth of July spike that halted earlier momentum.
“It appears we are making the turn, that distancing and wearing masks is taking effect and slowing transmission,” said William McKeon, CEO of the medical center. “We’ve still got a long way to go, but at least we’re not headed in the cataclysmic direction we were a few weeks ago.”
Dr. Marc Boom, president of
Houston Methodist, added that it’s been a “good solid week of encouraging data, but the $64,000 dollar question is, can we sustain it? We had the numbers going in the right direction before Memorial Day only to see things worsen.”
Things worsened to the point that people began calling Houston the next New York City. The area’s medical emergency response agency reported difficulty transferring patients in need of care to Houstonarea hospitals. And some medical center facilities were boarding patients in their emergency departments for 24 hours or more because of the lack of available staffed beds. In addition, the medical center implemented the first phase of its surge plan and warned that it was nearing crisis levels.
On June 19, Hidalgo issued her mask requirement and two weeks later Gov. Greg Abbott ordered a similar one for most counties.
But the two officials remain at loggerheads about the need for another stay-at-home order. The first was highly disruptive to the Texas economy, but was widely credited with keeping the virus’ spread under control.
Case counts grew steadily after Abbott began reopening the economy May 1. Cases particularly spiked following the Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends. The governor’s current order prevents local leaders from issuing a new stayat-home order.
The Houston area’s signs of improvement contrasted with another tough day for the state, which recorded more than 10,000 new cases and 157 deaths Tuesday. The death total is the state’s second most since the pandemic began.
Dr. James McDeavitt, dean of clinical affairs at Baylor, said Tuesday he thinks the recent Houstonarea trends are encouraging enough that “we don’t need additional measures that will slow the economy down. I don’t think we need to do anything differently right now.”
“The mask order, the closure of bars and restrictions on restaurants, the work already done, and the fact that the public has finally recognized this is a serious issue and started to take masking and social distancing more seriously and broadly is having the desired effect,” said McDeavitt. “I think we should start to see things really improve over the next couple weeks.”
One reason for the optimism of local medical leaders: McDeavitt and others cited a 2.2 percent decrease in medical center hospitalizations in the last seven days. And after seven consecutive weeks of increasing numbers of hospitalizations for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, such numbers have now decreased both of the last two weeks.
For instance, admissions are down at Houston Methodist and the Memorial Hermann Health System, the Houston-area hospital chains that have treated the most COVID-19 patients. Memorial Hermann’s census was 923 Tuesday, down from 980 a week ago. Methodist’s was 733 Tuesday, down from 766 on July 13.
The improvement in the positive COVID-19 test rate in the medical center has been less pronounced but at least is on the downward slope. The percent of people testing positive rose from five in midMay to 23 on July 9. Since then, it has dropped to 19 percent.
Viral spread
The greatest enthusiasm for the idea that COVID-19 has peaked in the Houston area are estimates of the current amount of viral spread in the region.
Such estimates track the number of people to whom each person infected with the virus transmits it — more than one and the virus spreads exponentially, less than one and spread declines. If each person spreads the virus to one person, numbers remain essentially the same.
Under new estimates produced at Baylor, the number rose for seven straight days — from .94 on July 6 to 1.47 on July 13. Since then, it has decreased for seven straight — to .81 Monday.
Chris Amos, a Baylor professor of quantitative science who conducted the work, said if Houston is able to maintain that rate for three months, there would be just 7 percent as many cases in the area then as there are now. At four months, there would be just 3 percent as many. He said he is not optimistic the area would be able to drop the rate below .80 without a stay-athome order.
“The improvement in the number reflects better behavior by our populace … “Wearing masks when out, which is contributing to lower transmission, is a really easy thing to do,” Amos said.
Darrell Pile, CEO of the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council, noted, however, that “the virus remains fiercely among us and at once unthinkable levels.” Any relaxation can cause a new spike, Pile said.
McKeon said it’s important for people to develop the mindset that the virus is going to be around for a long while.
“We can only continue to get the numbers down — tenfold from where they are now — if people adopt the proper behavior as a long-term strategy,” McKeon said.
“This is war. People need to sacrifice for the greater good of the community by wearing a mask and practicing social distancing — not just weekly or monthly but until the virus is eliminated.”
“We’ve still got a long way to go, but at least we’re not headed in the cataclysmic direction we were a few weeks ago.” Texas Medical Center CEO William McKeon