Pediatric ICU Crisis Intensifies
as Abbott Touts Positivity Rate

Capitol Inside
September 3, 2021

Texas hospitals had no pediatric intensive care units available in major cities from the Panhandle to the southern border on Friday - a development that might have been predictable after 27,353 public school students and 4,447 staff members tested positive for COVID-19 during the first three weeks of the fall semester last month.

The Department of State Health Services reported 26,615 confirmed and probable new coronavirus cases today along with 303 fatalities - a slight dip from Thursday when 336 people died in Texas with covid infections.

Governor Greg Abbott sought to put a positive face on the delta variant rampage on Thursday in an interview on CNBC when he defended a highly unpopular ban on school mask mandates by reciting selective metrics like the testing positivity rate that has gone down in the past three weeks.

"The positivity rate in Texas is at a three-week low and has steadily declined for three weeks," Abbott said. "In fact, it’s the lowest that it has been in over a month, hospitalizations are flatlining, the positivity cases are flatlining, so things are looking good."

Abbott had used the testing positivity rate as the official guide for restrictions that he issued during the six months of covid contagion. But Abbott lowered the thresshold for restrictions when he switched to hospitalizations last fall in a move that made it easier to justify a decision to allow Texas bars to reopen in October after a three-month shuttering under orders of the governor.

The testing positivity as the only metric that's been going in the right direction, however, as the governor tries to make it harder for Texans to fight the virus with bans on school mask and vaccine mandates that have caused confusion and chaos at schools where infections are spreading rapidly.

"It seems like there's a lifespan of advancement of the delta variant that lasts about a month or so and then you see a decline, and you see this repeated from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and it looks like it's being repeated in the state of Texas," Abbott explained. "The fact of the matter is, there's a tremendous amount of acquired immunity in the state of Texas. One report showed that at least 30% of Texans do have acquired immunity … so with our acquired immunity, with those who have already received full vaccination, the numbers are beginning to look very good in the state of Texas."

The pandemic intensified nonetheless at hospitals around the state on Friday when the DSHS reported there to be zero pediatric ICU beds in state health regions that are anchored by Dallas, Midland, Laredo, Waco, Bryan-College Station and San Angelo.

The hospital districts that include Austin, Abilene and the Belton-Killeen area had one ICU bed for patients who are children this afternoon. The regions where the Amarillo and Corpus Christi areas are based both had two paediatric beds in intensive care sections. The lower Rio Grande Valley had three.

The count of positive tests for students and staff at Texas public schools has skyrocketed with the potential to surpass 40,000 and 5,000 for students and staff respectively when the state updates weekly totals this weekend.

more to come ...