Houston, TX - Senator Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) is strongly pushing back on the continued claims from Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo (D-Harris County) that we need to enact another shutdown, via stay at home order, to fight the coronavirus in Texas. Senator Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe) is also speaking out on this issue. The TMC data chart below on the right, and a Senate District 7 derivative chart on the left, both show that hospitalizations in the Texas Medical Center have been flattening out since June 28 and the slope of the Senate District 7 graph has gone negative which confirms it.

"A Socialist's view that we should repeatedly shut down the Texas economy by enforcing a stay at home order is not supported by these facts, nor is preventing the opening of schools in the Fall" said Senator Bettencourt. "Doing so would have a tremendous negative effect on workers and businesses, especially as the PPP Program is slated to end early next month. Governor Abbott is right to resist these calls," he added.

The charts above show that these trends are becoming increasingly clear with the flattening of hospitalization numbers as reported daily by the Texas Medical Center of new COVID-19 hospitalizations and associated seven-day average trends. DSHS data from July 15 also shows a drop in hospitalizations in the State of Texas.

"As reported by KTRH, Texas saw around 10,000 deaths from the flu in 2017-2018, but mercifully by comparison, COVID-19 has only killed approximately 3,500 Texans," continued Senator Bettencourt. "Judge Hidalgo is wrong, we can fight this virus and keep the economy open at the same time," he added.

Senator Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe) stated in a recent Facebook post: "With a Covid-19 survival rate of nearly 99% across Texas (and fatality rates are even lower for those under 50) we can continue to build on the massive number of recoveries we are seeing in the data and not threaten the lives and safety of millions of Texans by further damaging the economy and the job market." He added, "We can do this!"

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