Leaders must follow the science, not politics
Late in September of 1918, the city of Philadelphia held a parade to support the WWI war effort. They had thought the worst of the Spanish flu epidemic was over, but within a few weeks of the event thousands had died in the city from a fresh outbreak of Spanish flu. The city’s leaders had acted too soon and it caused a huge spike in the epidemic. Sound familiar?
Back in April, I advocated for increasing testing capacity, improving turnaround times for test results, and for implementing a strategic quarantine, test and trace strategy. I wrote, “Until we are testing quarantined contacts who are asymptomatic, we will be chasing this from behind.” And I also said: “If we drop our guard too soon, especially while ‘flying blind,’ we open ourselves to the possibility of making things even worse” and that “could lead to catastrophic consequences …”
We did fly blind and now we are in a full-blown crisis. Over 4,000 Texans have died from this virus, and we currently average over a hundred deaths per day according to the Texas Department of Safety and Health Services. Texas is one of the global hot spots for the COVID-19 outbreak, and we are currently increasing by up to 10,000 new positive cases every single day.
Texas has greatly increased testing numbers in the past few months, moving from 48th in the nation to 36th in terms of tests per capita. But turnaround times for tests are still a week to two weeks for the vast majority of testing sites. My wife and I got tested and it took over three weeks to receive results!
There’s just no way to get in front of this pandemic when test results are delayed for days or even weeks. It’s like we are looking at the past. So even if the sheer number of new positive results wasn’t already overwhelming efforts to contact trace, test result delays also reduce our ability to trace effectively.
Add to that the alarming sign that our test positivity rate has been climbing in Texas. Back in April, our positivity in Texas was dropping from 9 percent to a low of around 6 percent, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracking, but during June and July we have climbed to about 15 percent.
Here in Harris County, the Texas Medical Center is reporting 20 percent positivity. One of our most powerful tools to fight this pandemic is to identify the folks who will spread the disease before they even know that they have it.
The experts advise that 5 percent positivity is the guideline to determine if enough testing is being done for officials to make informed policy decisions — decisions on things like mask orders, or reopening schools, or shutting down nonessential businesses. When positivity is over 5 percent it means not enough testing is being done. For perspective, we have not been under 5 percent in Texas since March, four months ago.
Engineers like me are data driven. We tackle problems and make decisions based on science and credible facts. I’m obviously not an expert on epidemiology, and that’s why I listen to the experts to inform my policy position. It’s clear that the medical and scientific consensus worldwide is that testing is key to addressing this crisis. And addressing the health crisis must be the priority — once we have this under control then we can safely and confidently move more aggressively forward to improve the economic issues we currently face.
We need to work together, y’all. It is what we do here in Texas. Neighbors help each other in our communities during times of crisis and need. When it comes to hurricanes and floods we see people banding together to help each other, and that’s what we need now. Floodwaters don’t care if you’re on the red team or the blue team — and neither does this coronavirus.
For citizens and neighbors: Wear a mask and practice physical distancing. Even folded cloth masks like bandannas have been shown to dramatically reduce the spread, and that’s where we need to start. Practice physical distancing and good hygiene like frequent hand washing. Avoid large gatherings
Do it for your neighbor. Do it for your community.
For our administration and elected officials: Follow the science. Do not politicize these issues. Don’t “cherry pick” data and don’t rush the process. Those policies are exactly how we end up being an epicenter for infection spread. Relentlessly pursue avenues to improve test turnaround times and increase test capability and implement contact tracing at scale to help corral outbreaks.
Do it for the people of Texas. Do it to save our economy and our lives.
We must learn from our mistakes, so that together we can take the steps necessary to beat this crisis, to save lives, and allow our economy to recover.