COVID. The state’s health department says new cases are up 92 percent from last week’s numbers. Hospitalizations are near where they were in early February. The vast majority of people now dying from COVID-19 — preliminary data says more than 99 percent — are unvaccinated. (The Texas Tribune has a worthwhile look at the “demographic and geographic trends” of unvaccinated Texans, finding the largest unvaccinated populations among “white conservatives in rural areas, and Hispanic and Black people in big cities.”) UT Southwestern is forecasting a continued surge in North Texas. Not great.
Dallas Area Reps Reportedly Take European Vacation. State representatives Jessica Gonzalez (D-Dallas) and Julie Johnson (D-Farmers Branch) skipped Austin for Washington D.C. along with other Texas Democrats fighting a restrictive GOP voting bill. Now they may have skipped the U.S. capital for Portugal. No one has definitively confirmed this. No one has denied it either. Without providing proof that they had not left the country, Gonzalez told the San Antonio Express-News “no one has shown proof” that they had. So there you go.
Rough Week at DFW Airport. Hundreds of flight delays and cancellations caused by bad weather and logistical problems aren’t going to help all those unruly passengers relax.
Mandatory Shots for Employees at Children’s Health and Cook Children’s. They join other health care providers in North Texas that are requiring workers to get the jab.
