Texas coronavirus totals jump due to 1,500 previously excluded state prison infections

[TexasTowelie]

Texas’ coronavirus case total jumped this week in part due to nearly 1,500 infections among state prisoners that had not been previously counted in statewide tallies.

On Tuesday, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported that the total number of coronavirus cases increased by more than 4,000. Of those, about 2,600 are new and the rest were previously excluded infections among inmates in two counties: 887 in Anderson County and 589 in Brazoria County.

Department spokesman Chris Van Deusen told The Dallas Morning News the prison cases date back to March.

“These weren’t cases that were diagnosed yesterday,” Van Deusen said Wednesday.

Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2020/06/17/texas-coronavirus-totals-jump-thanks-to-1500-previously-excluded-state-prison-infections/

Texas, striving earnestly to be the first to declare herd immunity to COVID-19.

[Squinch]

1. Even if it was 2600, that's still climbing.

[Shell_Seas]

2. I've been raising red flags about this for months.

April 21 - https://livingbluetx.com/2020/04/texas-lying-coronavirus-cases/

April 24 - https://livingbluetx.com/2020/04/texas-covid-response/

April 29 - https://livingbluetx.com/2020/04/coronavirus-cover-up/

May 15 - https://livingbluetx.com/2020/05/under-reporting-coronavirus-cases/

June 10 - https://livingbluetx.com/2020/06/tx-6th-highest-covid-cases/

ESPECIALLY Anderson County, which I've spoken about in every single one of the above articles. Not only have I been bugging my elected officials about this, I've been telling all of my readers and social media followers. They knew those numbers weren't being counted for MONTHS. Everyone knew. I guess the finally started counting them... or so they say. Anderson and Brazoria were not the only counties which weren't being counted, but they got the most attention because Anderson county has the highest prison population and they sent 128 of their positive cases down to Brazoria who published on their website they refused to count them because they were supposed to be counted in Anderson county.

My article last week pointed out that the counties still weren't counting them and the TDCJ was saying there were 7,200 total cases. So, the article said we should just assume they aren't counting any of them since they haven't been honest with them yet.

I'm glad they're finally counting them, but took long enough.

[TexasTowelie]

3. I'm aware of what you said on your blog.

It's good that someone is keeping tabs on the data because it is far too easy for the numbers to be fudged. It looks like Austin is starting to reclose again.

[Shell_Seas]

4. I'm in Tarrant County, we're pretty bad here, too. People are just out and about like normal.

No word of shutting back down, though.

P.s. Thanks for reading