https://www.wacotrib.com/news/government/officials-credit-voluntary-efforts-encourage-vigilance-as-waco-covid-19-hospitalizations-hit-zero/article_d6445dbd-d727-581d-9c74-ac5fe7479724.html

If it is behind a paywall for you:
- As of 05/14, no one in local hospitals is in for Covid
- Mayor Deaver credits voluntary compliance to stay-at-home measures, social distancing, hand washing, and mask-wearing in public.
- Health Officials hope that people continue doing this as Gov. Abbott relaxes restrictions
- Since the crisis began, 96 McClennan County residents have tested positive, 4 have died, 4 are currently recovering, 88 have recovered.
- 4,593 people have been tested.
- Also credits, early shelter-in-place, low population density, lack of mass transit, lack of international travel
- Mayor would like to require people to wear masks in public but knows that Gov Abbott will allow local law officials to enforce it.
- Mayor will follow Gov Abbott's leadership on reopening.

We are headed down to Baylor tomorrow to move my daughter out of her dorm. Gives us confidence knowing that only 4 people are known to have Covid.

But, no idea how many asymptomatic, untested people are out there.

Added a couple of cases this week- waco has done really well for being a I-35 corridor city...

McLennan County and Waco have done an excellent job of sheltering in place and taking this seriously. In fact it is still largely occurring despite the Governor saying a couple of weeks ago no one has to everyone go out to eat. Alot of businesses such as alot of restaurants have maintained their shelter in place practices.

Gruvin said:

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Added a couple of cases this week- waco has done really well for being a I-35 corridor city...

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My daughter had been working at BSW Hillcrest and said they had cases but all the necessary PPE and other supplies were well stocked unlike what we were hearing from some areas. She gained some really good experience in all of this mess.

Thank your daughter for us!

KajunKarlsdad said:

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Gruvin said:

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Added a couple of cases this week- waco has done really well for being a I-35 corridor city...

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My daughter had been working at BSW Hillcrest and said they had cases but all the necessary PPE and other supplies were well stocked unlike what we were hearing from some areas. She gained some really good experience in all of this mess.

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Same at Providence. I think it had more cases there, but was still never stretched. It might have been tougher if we had gotten hit like some places, but the number of cases in McLennan County is among the lowest per capita anywhere that is reasonably populated. This zoomable map is interesting. Amarillo is 1 case per 83 people, while Waco is one per 2,561 people. Potter County (Amarillo) has half the people of McLennan but 6 times the deaths. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

That is all because of an outbreak at a Swift Meat packing plant at Cactus just north of Dumas. They were running 3 busses a day to and from Amarillo to pick up workers. Were picking them up at a Walmart. Caused spread. CDC & HHS are there now trying to get it under control.

I think McLennan County has really benefitted from the early Shelter In Place orders from local officials..I believe they mitigated in the nick of time...That being said, I've really noticed a large increase in cars on the streets and in grocery and big box store parking lots this week..The Phase 1 reopening has people out in force...hoping our "luck" continues in the low number of cases...

the shelter in place by the mayor when things started to heat up was a great call

Was in Waco this weekend to move a daughter out of Brooks.

1) Eating out on the patio at Hecho and having a frozen margarita was awesome.
2). Noticed lines as we drove by La Fiesta, Cheddars, and other lower end chains. No masks in the crowd.
3) Virtually no mask use at Academy.

Waco's #s were high very early because of the early spring break and a lot of cases brought back from Colorado hot spots and NY. But they were isolated quickly, and Waco did very well from there to this point. Most people should be resuming activities (especially outdoor activities) when there isn't a single hospital case in the county. I'm sure there are more cases out there than the 4-5 known cases, but the empty hospital tells you that there aren't that many cases out there now.

McLennan County has been amazing. It seems to have the lowest per-capita impact of any Texas county.

Lubbock reported no new cases yesterday. Some are wearing masks, most folks are not.

Update:

McLennan County reported 4 new cases on Wednesday and 4 additional cases on Thursday. All of the cases are thought to be community spread and not imported from outside of the county.

But the key is how many of the new cases required hospitalization?

Edmond Bear said:

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Update:

McLennan County reported 4 new cases on Wednesday and 4 additional cases on Thursday. All of the cases are thought to be community spread and not imported from outside of the county.

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With the 8 new cases this week, the percentage of McLennan County population not infected dropped from 99.963% to 99.958%.

BearlyHeardFrom said:

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But the key is how many of the new cases required hospitalization?

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Noticed on the 3PM covidwaco.com update that one additional case was reported today. ( Friday 22nd) I'm thinking the recent reported increase in active cases may be partly due to increased testing. Today showed one hospitalization. If one clicks the arrows on the side of the hospitalization box, it scrolls through various other stats. One in particular caught my eye...They show a total of 54 ICU beds in McLennan County, with 49 currently in use. Guess its a good thing that we don't have a large number of Covid cases right now, with only 5 additional ICU beds currently available.

Our whole country has been cutting hospital beds in general and ICU beds down for the last few decades. That's a large part of what made this covid thing such a big deal. Even though such a small % of covid patients go into hospital beds, we have few hospital beds to spare from the get-go.

Yep. ICU beds aren't as profitable as they used to be.

Since 5/22 (last update I put up), there have been 1,328 tests performed in McLennan County with 4 positive results or 0.3%

I'd say Waco is pretty safe.

On Tuesday, after Memorial Day, Waco had it's largest one day spike in new cases in March. Six new cases were reported, still at zero hospitalizations.

All people under 40. Would be interesting to know if it was in a cluster, but paper won't really tell you that.

Still only 18 cases in the county, and as you said 0 hospitalizations.

9 new cases reported yesterday. 24 active in McLennan County with 5 hospitalizations.

There has been increased testing recently. But, the percent positive has increased each of the last 4 days.

Overwhelming.

18 new cases today. Now at 62 active and 8 hospitalizations. No bueno.

IASIP Rocks said:

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18 new cases today. Now at 62 active and 8 hospitalizations. No bueno.

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are they doing any contact tracing?

IASIP Rocks said:

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18 new cases today. Now at 62 active and 8 hospitalizations. No bueno.

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it's a virus. this is what happens.

Gruvin said:

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IASIP Rocks said:

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18 new cases today. Now at 62 active and 8 hospitalizations. No bueno.

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are they doing any contact tracing?

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Yes

Remember testing is at 3-4X what it was back in March/April/early May. Positivity rate is only at 2%. Back in March it peaked at 8%.

This article suggests the rolling 7 day positivity rate is now up to 5%.

https://www.wacotrib.com/news/government/26-more-test-positive-for-covid-19-in-mclennan-county/article_6fc7f2cc-92c7-5218-9775-e11cd4a15fc9.html

One death since middle of April.


[url=https://www.wacotrib.com/news/government/26-more-test-positive-for-covid-19-in-mclennan-county/article_6fc7f2cc-92c7-5218-9775-e11cd4a15fc9.html][/url]

Yeah it's apparently rising quickly and catching up with the rest of the state