Tarrant County Testing Numbers Artificially Low

Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick Lied About This Being Under Control

• Abbott said less than 10% of the people who have been tested for the coronavirus have tested positive. (According to today’s numbers on the Texas HHS map, we’ve tested 47,857 and have 3,997 positives. That would be 8.4%. However, estimated numbers are likely much higher due to a lack of testing. Reports also indicated that for every known case, there are likely 10 more unknown cases. So, likely we have more like 39,970 positives in Texas. And for us to know that we would have had to have done 487,570 tests at this point.)
• Abbott also said that most of the positive cases in Texas were infected before we started practicing social distancing. Another lie. Since symptoms of COVID-19 typically take 2-14 days to show up, two weeks ago from yesterday was March 17th and March 17th happened to be the exact day Abbott activated the national guard and started social distancing. On that day we only had 69 cases in Texas. So, what Abbott was trying to say is that “most” of the current 3,997 cases happened before March 17th. Well, if that’s the case, Governor, since social distancing has been in place 14 days, we won’t see many more cases after today, right? Let’s see. His flat out refusal to acknowledge community spread has happened and is still happenings is malicious. Perhaps, this is why he is keeping testing numbers artificially low.

What are the numbers?

• During the news conference, Dan Patrick also had time to flop around his gums, claiming that the death rate in Texas is one of the lowest in the country. Let’s look at the top 10 highest infected states in the US as of 4/1 at 9 pm:

• Massachusetts: 7,738 infections, 122 deaths = 1.5%
• Illinois: 6,980 infections, 145 deaths = 2%
• Florida: 6,957 infections, 87 deaths = 1.2%
• Louisiana: 6,424 infections, 273 deaths = 4.2%
• Pennsylvania: 6,009 infections, 74 deaths = 1.2%
• Washington: 5,608 infections, 234 deaths = 4.1%

What about Texas?

Now, let’s look at Texas’ numbers. 4,355 confirmed, 67 deaths = 1.5% While it is true that several states have a higher rate than us, one of the lowest in the country is a farce. Tennessee and North Carolina are both currently at 0.8%, Missouri is at 1.3%, Utah is at 0.7%, New Hampshire is at 0.9%, and so on. Texas is really more like right in the middle. He just said that for the sake of saying it, just like Abbott does, or Trump.

• Then Patrick topped it all off by saying, that the reason Texas has been so successful in keeping their numbers low is that all 29 million Texans have been doing a great job social distancing. Please! If any of us leave our house in the middle of a weekday for any reason, there are so many people out and about, you likely won’t even notice a difference between now and the pre-COVID era.

How do we know that Tarrant County or any other county in Texas is making their testing numbers artificially low?

Aside from my own experience in Tarrant County trying to obtain a Coronavirus test and all of the reports coming out both in local news and social media about a repeat of my experience; their own numbers are indicating it. Remember, Texas has been telling us that only 8.4% of tests have been positive. In Tarrant County, Texas HHS has reported that there are 273 positives in Texas. That means, there has been roughly 3,250 tests in Tarrant County. The first positive was on March 10th. This means in Tarrant County, they have only been roughly testing 147 people a day, with a population of over 2 million people. It’s not enough. Countless people, including myself, have been told by doctors and hospitals that it’s likely we had the virus, but no tests were available. Go home and quarantine yourself for 14 days. End of story.

To date, Tarrant County still doesn’t have any testing sites open. They are hardly testing anyone. Most people who have tested had to go to Dallas county to obtain these tests. Anyone with half a brain knows these numbers are inaccurate. Testing is artificially low and millions of Texans are at risk.

I’m picking on Tarrant County because that’s where my hometown is and that’s where my COVID-19 experience took place. And although Dallas, Harris, and Travis counties have all stepped up with testing, there is no doubt that counties all over Texas are still denying Texans coronavirus tests, even when they present every known coronavirus symptom.

Then there’s the Masonic Lodge

He claimed that Arlington had just received 2,500 test kits. Which we already know is a complete lie based on the roughly 3,250 total tests done in Tarrant County in the last 22 days, (as discussed above).

As of March 18th, Mr. James’ wife, who was also presenting symptoms and the other residents and staff had not been tested for coronavirus, yet. In fact, it took until March 21st, 10 days after Mr. James was hospitalized, before tests actually took place at the Masonic Lodge. On March 24th, it was reported that 4 additional people from the Masonic Lodge tested positive. There still hasn’t been any word about Mrs. James or a number of exactly how many residents and employees were tested. Were all of them tested? Or only those showing symptoms? Or, in like many other places in the county, were those tests only given after a person was in critical condition?

It’s time for someone to take this seriously

Our federal government has failed us in testing, making the true numbers of infection artificially low. On top of that, our state government has further failed us by not getting testing rolled out in a timely matter. Aside from the state government failing us, they have also lied to us. And now, our local county and cities are failing us, too.

The reason testing was important was to identify the infections early, isolate those people, and stop the spread. I said was because it’s quite possibly too late, as reports now say that a best-case scenario would be between 100,000 to 240,000 Americans dead. We need to shelter in place so we can minimize the incoming carnage about to befall our country. Unfortunately, both our federal and state governments refuse to issue this order. The only thing Texas citizens can do now is brace for impact.