Going behind the COVID-19 numbers with Judge McKinney

Hannigan's Notebook

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Going behind the COVID-19 numbers with Judge McKinney

Jun 17, 2020

(Photo: Henderson County Judge Wade McKinney.)

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Texas has seen a spike in reported cases of COVID-19 since reopening and Henderson County is no different, but do those numbers tell an accurate story of what’s happening in our county?

Not always.

As of Tuesday night, the Northeast Texas Public Health District (NET Health) had Henderson County with 85 total cases since the pandemic started, including 15 new cases last week (June 7 - June 13).

But Judge Wade McKinney said Wednesday that the county actually only had nine new cases last week. Six of the cases were from earlier and just hit the statistics last week because of delays in reporting.

Still, there has definitely been an increase in reported cases.

Part of that increase can be attributed to more testing. When the pandemic started, Texas was able to test fewer than 300 people per day. Now, McKinney said the state regularly tests more than 20,000 per day.

“That is something Texas is getting some notoriety for, how well it has increased the testing,” he said. “With more tests of course you have more positive returns.”

So what number does McKinney watch to gauge the local situation?

“The number I look at is that active cases number,” he said. “Yes, the other numbers are important, but that active cases number has stayed right in that 20ish range.”

There were 29 active cases Tuesday, according to NET Health.

The other number McKinney watches is how many people are hospitalized with COVID-19. He said our East Texas region includes nearly 1 million people and currently has 57 individuals hospitalized for the coronavirus.

“We watch that number, because that is still one of the concerns from the beginning,” he said. “We cannot overwhelm the hospital system.”

McKinney said it is still important to follow the guidelines that have been in place since the beginning.

“Follow the rules we’ve talked about so many times, that our mothers taught us, wash your hands, stay out of someone’s face, respect their distance,” he said. “Those are proven tactics to help stop the spread.”

Please listen to the complete interview above to hear the Judge talk about:

COVID-19 numbers
Testing
Changes in behavior
Contact tracing
Disaster declarations
Impact on county offices
Number of hospitalizations
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