Your Daily Coronavirus Update. It’s bad. Tarrant County reported 517 cases yesterday and finally issued a mask order of its own. It’s similar to the ones in basically every other major county in Texas: if you’re a business, require a mask or face a per-person fine for violators. Dallas had 403 cases yesterday and County Judge Clay Jenkins says about half of June’s hospitalizations have been people who are between 18 and 39 years old. The nerve-racking thing about this is the lag in reportage. This is bad now, but it’s going to get worse before it gets better. In most people, it takes about five days for symptoms to show up. Test results come back in between three to five days. In a week, we might be in even deeper. And then we’re staring down July 4. Meanwhile, NBC 5 has this (somewhat confusing) report about ICU beds, which seems to allege that about a third of the 660 available beds in the region are actually for pediatric or neonatal patients, which obviously makes the calculus for response different. The Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council says some of the hospitals may be misreporting accidentally and asks the public to “give it a couple days.” The other things in the “exclusive” report—how many hospitals are reporting, the jump in hospitalizations—are easily available through this University of Texas at Dallas dashboard.
Colleyville Says It Won’t Enforce the Mask Order. Of course it won’t. This is the same city that allowed dining during the stay at home order. And its “Stars and Guitars” July 4 event is moving forward as planned.
The Saharan Dust Cloud Is Here. As if this year can’t get any more surreal, a giant cloud of dust that’s now making its way across North America after plaguing the Caribbean is in our airspace today and tomorrow. It won’t be as bad here as it was in Florida, but if you have asthma, take it into consideration before going outside. Otherwise, there are some minor showers in the forecast today, but it’ll be a sunny weekend.
