NEW TEXAS THREAD 1/12: Thought I would update on where I think we stand in #TexasCovid19.

Trigger Warning: Mostly it's bad news, but there is also some good news. The good news is that for the first time the bad news has brackets, but Nov-Feb will be rough for us

NEW TEXAS THREAD 2/12: Overall, sorry to say Texas leads the nation in COVID-19 cases. We would probably also lead the nation in COVID-19 deaths were it not for the March-April epidemic that hit New York after the virus entered from Europe in Jan-Feb

NEW TEXAS THREAD 3/12: We're now seeing a new and massive surge, number of new confirmed cases again hitting 10,000 as it did over the summer, except this time it's going to continue. Also now deaths starting to increase

NEW TEXAS THREAD 4/12: Much of this increase due to the humanitarian tragedy now unfolding in El Paso. Last night I wrote about this, bottom line we must do all we can to lower death rates there by preventing continued surges on El Paso ICUs, but I'm not sure this is happening

NEW TEXAS THREAD 5/12: But it's not only El Paso. Now the Panhandle is getting hammered. Soon Lubbock could get as bad as El Paso. And now numbers going up in North Texas DFW, elsewhere in northern part of our Triangle, also looking at Waco, Austin, etc

NEW TEXAS THREAD 6/12: Here are the @PolicyLabCHOP projections for Dallas, looking like it will get hit pretty hard as we head towards winter

NEW TEXAS THREAD 7/12: And Houston? Now numbers starting to increase, although so far not as bad as Panhandle or N Texas. Still in conversations with colleagues, such as Joseph Varon MD at United Memorial in Acres Home they are starting to see a significant rise in patients

NEW TEXAS THREAD 8/12: A bit of good news is that as one of my bosses Mark Wallace the CEO of @TexasChildrens always tells me, our @TXMedCenter "has a lot of heft" meaning capacity. But then again, who wants to get there, let's do all we can to protect Houstonians from COVID

NEW TEXAS THREAD 9/12: Overall, I have to say that things are not looking good for us. We'll likely again see the deaths rise with new @IHME_UW projections showing that we could go from 20,000 Texans losing their lives to 37,000 deaths (almost double) by end of February.

NEW TEXAS THREAD 10/12: So a point I hope to make today is that we don't have to get there. Starting today we could prevent 17,000 Texans from losing their lives over the next few months, if we could just take this epidemic seriously. It's not forever just hang on 4 more months

NEW TEXAS THREAD 11/12: Starting next year we'll likely have some good vaccines available, maybe including ours (announcement expected tomorrow). But first please do everything humanly possible to keep yourself, your mom, dad, brother, sister safe during this very dark winter

NEW TEXAS THREAD 12/12: It also means ignoring the crap and disinformation. Here are the inconvenient truths:
1) There is no herd immunity
2) Yes masks work
3) Yes COVID-19 deaths are really caused by COVID-19
4) In Hispanic community, 35% of COVID deaths under age of 65