Monday on “Fox News @ Night,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-TX) insisted the doom and gloom portrayed by the media regarding COVID-19 and Texas was not reflective of reality.
Patrick insisted compared to other states, fatalities were low in Texas and the curve had flattened despite a “sky is falling” narrative.
“I think sometimes present company excluded on Fox, but the rest of the media wants us to come out and say the sky is falling and run for the hills,” he said. “And on the other hand, if you if you come out and you’re too positive, and you give people hope, you know, they criticize that. So, no matter what you say, the media is ready to pounce on you, particularly if you’re a Republican. They don’t talk about California and New York. They really talk about Texas. Well, let me tell you about Texas. So, we are still flat and right where we were in fatalities going back a month or two months ago. For example, we had 10 deaths in the report today, every life is valuable. But 10, we had 47 the other day, then we had 20, then we had 30. What I’m watching Shannon, is that key indicator: how many people are dying from this? And across the country, we’ve seen that flatten, and we’ve seen that flatten so far and prayerfully that will continue.”
“So, I look at that number,” Patrick continued. ‘Secondly, yes, our cases, we had four more thousand cases today, but that’s down 1000 cases from yesterday. So, I never look at one day, I look at you know, weeks, two weeks at a time. And right now, our hospitalizations are up with young people. They’re going to the hospital. They’re staying less time and they’re coming out and they’re not dying from this. Now, that doesn’t mean that we won’t see fatalities with people under 50, but for the most part, it’s cases going up because we’re testing more and more young people. Real quick, Shannon, here’s, here’s part of that. Back in March and April, the people who were getting tested and the people who were going to the hospital were primarily over 65 that’s what we were testing. They weren’t out socializing with each other, so it was not spreading as quickly. But now, once we’ve unleashed everyone under 50, to go out and socialize together, they’re not like the seniors where, they’re not wearing masks. They’re next to each other. They’re not being careful. And that’s the reason the positivity rate is up.”
“But I still look at Texas, we have eight deaths per 100,000 people,” he added. “New York has 161 deaths per 100,000 people. And even California, that locked down during this whole time why we’ve been opening, they have 15 deaths per 100,000. So, compare California and New York to Texas. We’re doing it right. The only places, Shannon, that have lower deaths in Texas, are Guam, Puerto Rico, Oregon, West Virginia and Utah. I think we’re doing it right, but prayerfully we keep doing it right.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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