Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

• Coronavirus local news:
• Decatur's prom was cancelled, Decatur ISD voluntary athletic workouts were suspended, and "20 students at McCarroll Middle School came into contact with an individual who was symptomatic and tested positive for COVID-19." (Messenger story.) There's an unconfirmed report that the "individual" was a teacher. 
• We still don't have any new Wise County numbers on the local site. The meaningless State site has us at 11 active cases.  In the middle of the worst part of the outbreak, we are left in the dark.
• I had one hospital source tell me even a conservative estimate of active cases in Wise County would put us in the 60s.  I'd believe that over the claim of 11 active cases.
• Edit: Just heard from our County Judge who is doing everything he can to pry the numbers out of the state (and here's the Facebook link he references):
  
• Texas numbers. I'll say it again: Remember when we shut down in April?  

  

  Hospitalizations

  
  

  

  New daily cases

• Random hot prediction: All UIL fall sports, including football, will be cancelled. 
• Almost all decisions for what will be open/active in the Fall depends on these next critical four weeks. That's when decisions must be made. And if those above charts don't do a 180, I have serious doubts that even schools will be open. 
• Other Rona news:
• Cancelled this morning: The August 6th Cowboys/Steelers preseason football game after the at the Hall of Fame ceremonies.
• Postponed: The aforementioned Hall of Fame ceremonies which had been scheduled for August 8th.
• If you want to travel to New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut from Texas you'll have to quarantine for 14 days. 
• The Texas Medical Center in Houston, the largest medical complex in the world, is on track to run out of ICU beds today. They expect to run out of "sustainable surge capacity" in about a week and a half. This is a big deal.
• For a while there I was publishing the chart for COVID cases at the national level. I'm going to bring it back today because we hit an all time high yesterday with 38,386 . It used to be fueled by the Northeast. Now Texas, Arizona and Florida lead the way.
  
• Disneyland, which is bleeding money, indefinitely delayed its planned July 17th reopening. 
• TCU has 25 more students testing positive bringing the current active total to 64. And it isn't even the Fall. 
• Tarrant County officials have a press conference at 9:30 a.m. this morning. Speculation is that it will be a "businesses must require masks" order. 
• "I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down,' - Trump last Saturday. Now we have actual proof that he wasn't kidding. How is this possible? The Trump Administration has gone from daily press conference to absolutely pretending the outbreak doesn't exist. 
  
• Flashback:
  
• Observations on this Wichita Falls story: (1) The cops claim that his wife just said "come on in", (2) the amount of money Texas is losing by not legalizing marijuana is laughable, (3) I'm not the only one who makes typos.
  
• A Harris County assistant DA resigned yesterday with a letter that went scorched earth on her boss.
• A new New York Times poll this morning on the battleground states show Biden with double digit leads. Make no mistake about this: There will be a massive anti-Trump vote. Biden has nothing to do with it. (Think anti-Hillary vote multiplied.)
  
  
• The Rangers' new ballpark was torched online yesterday when an actual aerial view was compared to the "artist rendering" drawings.  Where did all that glass go?
  
  
  
  
• This is a wild story.  I looked up the location of the home because I was guessing it was in Mira Vista. Nope. There's a couple of areas along 820 which have some very high tone homes.
  
  
  
  
• Census estimated numbers for Texas were just released. White Nationalists won't be happy. (Of the five most populated counties, Tarrant County had the biggest Hispanic increase.) 
  
• New: "Former GOP presidential aspirant Carly Fiorina says she plans to vote for Biden."