Models of the spread and intensity of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. are full of uncertainty. This is, after all, a disease caused by a “novel” coronavirus.
The widely cited reports from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, for example, show demand for critical resources (hospital beds, intensive care unit (ICU) beds, and ventilators) will peak in Texas on April 26. A team of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences, meanwhile, is projecting infection, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and deaths in 22 Texas communities. Their study forecasts anywhere from 2.1 million to 21 million COVID-19 cases in the state between now and Aug. 17.
Just from these two studies, you can see the wide spread in projected numbers of cases and timelines of when they will be the worst. But within those and other projections, the biggest variable is social distancing. The more Texans hunker down and stay away from each other, the better the results. So how are we doing at that?
Nationally, the Gallup Poll this week reported that “three in four Americans say they have completely (28%) or mostly (47%) isolated themselves from people outside their household.”
At least three groups of analysts are trying to measure success at social distancing state by state – and two of them drill down to the local level. All three give Texas fair to middling marks so far.
The simplest one, by WalletHub, ranks Texas 42nd on “prevention and containment risk.” The report quantifies 23 measures – from pre-outbreak strength of the state’s public health infrastructure to mandatory school closings and strictness of shelter-in-place orders. Hawaii got the No. 1 rank; Oklahoma was No. 51.
WalletHub looks at what Texans are being told to do, but doesn’t measure whether we’re actually doing it. Two others do.
Unacast, a firm that tracks huge quantities of cell phone location data, gives Texas a “C” grade based on how much Texans have reduced their average daily mobility. The company estimates a 40% to 55% “reduction in average mobility” for Texas. (Unacast updates its site daily; at press time, the most current data was from April 9.) The U.S. as a whole gets a “B” – 65% to 70% reduction in average mobility. Vermont and Nevada stood at the head of the class, each with an “A-.”
At the county level, Brewster County – the largest in Texas and with no reported cases of COVID-19 – earned the only “A,” with a more-than-70% reduction in average mobility. (Given the size of the county, its relatively small population, and paucity of cell phone towers, this very well could be a statistical anomaly.) Among Texas’ five largest counties, Bexar, Dallas, Tarrant, and Travis all earned a “C+,” and Harris County got a “C.”
Unacast uses change in location of individual cell phone signals over the course of a day to measure “mobility” and compares current data to pre-outbreak studies to determine how much less people in each state are moving around now.
When it comes to gathering data about Americans, what we’re doing, and where we’re going, though, no one does it quite like Google. The company’s “COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports ... chart movement trends over time by geography, across different categories of places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential.” It uses data from Jan. 3 through Feb. 6 as a baseline.
Google doesn’t give out grades, so we’ll compare its mobility changes report for Texas (which are now almost two weeks old) to the nation as a whole (from April 5) on each category:
- Retail and recreation – Texas, down 45%; U.S., down 49%
- Grocery and pharmacy – Texas, down 23%; U.S., down 20%
- Parks – Texas, down 27%; U.S., down 20%
- Transit stations – Texas, down 47%; U.S., down 54%
- Workplaces – Texas, down 36%; U.S., down 40%
- Residential – Texas and U.S., both up 13%
For county-level data, scroll down through the pages of Google’s Texas report.
Remember, you can find the latest news, resources, and government guidance on the coronavirus outbreak by visiting TMA’s COVID-19 Resource Center regularly.