Contact tracing has led nowhere for Texas

AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott was certain contact tracing would help dig Texas out from the worst of the coronavirus pandemic.

As he prepared to reopen the state in late April, the governor boasted that more than 1,000 tracers were in place to track down infections and advise anyone exposed to stay home.

A website was up and running. Within weeks, thousands more tracers would be deployed and the technology to manage their progress available statewide.

“What that process does is, it will box in the expansion of COVID-19,” Abbott said in a news conference April 27.

But local health officials say standing up an army of tracers and the infrastructure to support them has been far more complicated than it may have seemed.

Key components of state and local tracing programs weren’t in place as Abbott expanded reopenings in May and June, even as cases began to rise and testing for the virus fell short of expectations.

“It was a plan,” said Rebecca Fischer, an epidemiologist who leads a team of contact tracers at Texas A&M University. “I think the impression was that it was ready to roll out.”

The rushed debut, compounded by an outdated reporting system and delays in processing tests for the virus, made it difficult for tracers to head off the rise in cases now sweeping across Texas, health officials said.

As its largest cities brace for a surge that already has tripled COVID-19 hospital

Baylor University regents are creating a panel to consider whether any statues, buildings or other tangible tributes on the Waco campus reflect a racist past.

The regents adopted a resolution that recognizes that most of the university’s founding fathers were slaveholders, racists and white supremacists when the school was founded in 1845. Those persons included Judge R.E.B. Baylor.

“During Baylor’s infancy, a number of university leaders and prominent individuals connected to the institution supported Confederate causes and engaged in the fight to preserve the institution of slavery both during and following the Civil War, including some serving as members of the Confederacy’s armed forces,” the resolution states.

The regents Thursday created “a Commission on Historic Campus Representations” to review the historical context of “all statues, monuments, buildings and other aspects of the campus in reference to their physical location, placement and naming.”