Data on DFW & Covid-19

From Laura McKieran, a professor of public health and Executive Director of CI:Now.

The Dallas-Fort Worth region — “DFW” for the rest of this post — now has its first official case of community spread.[1] What that means is that as of March 12 there is now proof that COVID-19 has already been being transmitted in DFW among DFW residents with no known risk — no travel or close contact with a known case required.

DFW has 14 official, confirmed cases as of Friday afternoon 3/13: six in Collin County, seven in Dallas County, and one in Tarrant County,[2] with another presumptive case waiting in the wings in Tarrant.[3] For purposes of this post I’m gonna call that an even 15 because damn, y’all… the pace of that change accelerates every single day, and I don’t want to do this math all over again at 9pm.

So 15’s not so bad, right? That’s just a rugby team. Here’s the thing, though: you can’t have a confirmed case without a test, and testing has been virtually nonexistent in the U.S. and Texas to date.[4],[5] So that’s sort of like deciding you must have zero toilet paper left even though you haven’t looked in the closet to see what’s there.

There’s a lot we don’t know, but what we do know for sure is that without widespread testing, confirmed cases are just the tiniest tip of the iceberg of true infections. When the Hubei (China)…