This is a quick look at varying statistics on the Wuhan coronavirus in one single county in Texas, and why reliable statistics on the coronavirus outbreak are so hard to come by.
Walker County, Texas is a little over an hour’s drive north of Houston, and is home to the state’s main prison complex in Huntsville, including the execution unit.
Accord to the Texas DHS coronavirus tracking map, as of today there are 1,098 “estimated active” coronavirus cases in Walker county.
However, when you go to the website for Walker County itself, it shows precisely 223 listed cases, which it breaks down as “233 reported – 8 duplicates – 2 not county residents.” Indeed it breaks down those number into individual cases, anonymized into case numbers, sex, and age range.
Moreover, it says that 113 cases have “graduated out” (which I take to mean they’ve had it long enough to be considered recovered and not infectious), meaning there are only 110 active cases, which suggests that (depending on the culling boundary for graduated cases), the state statistics are off by a factor of 5 to 10 times compared to county statistics.
The county statistics also break down overall statistics, presumably since they began tracking the pandemic:
Total Positive Cases: 1880
Total Fatality Cases: 30
They have an even further breakdown showing fatalities:
Fatalities Residents: 3
Case #18, male 70-80
Case #31, female 60-70
Case #126, female 80-85
Positive Cases (Active & Recovered) Offenders: 1657
Fatalities Offenders: 27
Byrd – 1
Ellis – 1
Estelle – 10
Goree – 1
Wynne – 14
Byrd, Ellis, Estelle, Goree and Wynne are particular prisons inside the Texas Prison System in Walker County, with Wynne and Estelle being the largest prisons. So only 10% of coronavirus deaths were that of free Walker County citizens, the rest were of prison inmates. This suggests that the prison system did indeed bungle its response to the coronavirus. (Here’s a Texas Tribune piece on poor conditions inside Wynne. The caveat is that the Texas Tribune only seems to report crime stories when either A.) The story is too big to ignore, or B.) Those stories might somehow reflect badly on Republicans.) Also, as reported in yesterday’s LinkSwarm, a change in the way Texas prisons count coronavirus cases led a noticeable jump in reported cases in Jefferson County. Without more details on those changes, it’s hard to understand whether they’re justified or how they impact the statistics in other counties with prisons.
But the disparity between county and state on active case statistics on a single county for which we have readily available hard data suggests that the state level statistics can’t be trusted, which in turn suggests that overall coronavirus statistics can’t be trusted.
So when you look at those fancy, impressive coronavirus tracking maps, realize that what you’re looking at probably has only the most tenuous connection to the truth.
So treat any “breaking news” about dramatic jumps in coronavirus case numbers (and let’s face it, those are the only numbers our MSM will deem worthy of reporting) with severe skepticism.