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Huge spike in Texas came partially from two counties reporting a large quantity of previously unreported cases. 

"The reported cases for June 16 include 2,622 new cases and 1,476 cases that were previously diagnosed among Texas Department of Criminal Justice inmates but that had not been reported by local health departments (887 from Anderson County and 589 from Brazoria County)." [source]

However, even 2622 would be a record and that means that previous days did NOT include some large spikes that should have been there.

I figured it was data correction to have a spike like that.  

Right now I am concerned, but not terribly worried -- yet.  Texas and a few other places are showing consistent acceleration of the infection.  Rough guess -- I'm seeing increases of about 10% every week.  2,500 daily this week, probably 2750 daily next week, then in the 3000's in July, 5000s in August.   All of which Texas can probably handle, but it does pose a risk for football.

Below is a link to a Lancet meta-analysis of studies regarding masks, social distancing, and eye protection. Bottom line: if exposed to someone with the virus, your likelihood of becoming infected sans mask use was 17.4%. With a normal fabric mask, the probability drops down to 3.1%. The effect is even more pronounced with an N95 mask.

I only skimmed to study, it's pretty heavy going, but there are others things it found, such as eye protection being a big help, and the fact that social distancing of 1 meter is better than nothing, 2 meters is better but doesn't offer full protection.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS01
40-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext

I'm all-in for face masks, I now have several bad-ass Longhorn masks that make me look even more awesome than I already do.

But this right here confuses and concerns me:

Face mask use could result in a large reduction in risk of infection (n=2647; aOR 0·15, 95% CI 0·07 to 0·34, RD −14·3%, −15·9 to −10·7; low certainty), with stronger associations with N95 or similar respirators compared with disposable surgical masks or similar (eg, reusable 12–16-layer cotton masks; p_interaction=0·090; posterior probability >95%, low certainty). 

I'm not seeing ANYONE using a 12-16 layer cotton mask, if that even means what I think it means?  

Texas cases started its increase a few days after the protests started

California case numbers took a jump up a few days after the protests started

not saying the protests is the only cause of increased cases only that it should be considered as one of the causes

Texas is a strange case. It looks like Texas started its statewide rise right on May 26. Yes, that was also the day after Floyd was killed. But given the amount of time it took protests to start spreading, and then if you build in lag time, there is no way that the cases could have spread quickly enough to be coincident with the May 26 start of the rise.

And I agree--protests SHOULD be considered one of the causes of rise. Some people did take precautions (masks & distancing) but others did not. To think that many people in close proximity had zero spread is just not sensible.

So what happened on May 26th

Day was picked because it was the first "record" day since May 9. California also had 4 record days between Apr 20 and May 9. 

If you look at the CA 7-day moving average, it was up until about Apr 8, paused/declined slightly until Apr 19, was up again to about May 9, paused/declined slightly until May 16, and then started its current trend up. Between May 16 (a Saturday), every single day except May 17-18 (Sun/Mon which are typical "low" days) was higher than May 16. That even includes the following Sun/Mon, May 23-24. 

So California's current rise started well before May 26--that was just the day that had passed the previous record of May 9. 

I won't speak for California, or even the rest of Texas, but in Austin I don't believe your statement is necessarily true.  Large protests started 3 weeks ago, the largest increasing age group of new cases in Austin is 20-29, and this is what the case trend looks like in Austin:

[img width=500 height=202.975]https://i.ibb.co/H439vMm/Austin-Covid.png[/img]

https://austin.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/39e4f8d4acb0433baae6d15a931fa984

That's not smooth and steady, by any definition.

Whereas, 3 weeks after reopening on May 1, all trends in Austin metro were actually going down, and continued trending down for 3 weeks-- until this most recent uptick began within the last 10 days.

There's no way to know for sure-- contract tracers are not allowed to ask if the positive test cases attended any protests-- but I believe there's at least some reasonable evidence, in Austin, that the protests are having an effect on the current increasing case counts.

Again, I think the protests definitely have an effect. I don't know specific to Austin whether the protests involved people who were actually taking precautions (masks/distancing) or not. I'm not trying to discount the idea that protests cause spread. 

I do think even beyond the protests (as that Florida link I provided above) may show, the younger folks tend to be trying to return to "normal" far more than anyone else. In addition to protests, if they're also hitting the bars, having parties, etc, that will increase the numbers too. 

I support reopening--but I think for too many people "reopening" means "back to normal", and that's going to be a problem. 

I tell people here that Ducey is trying to be Trump Jr and run for prez in 2024 if Trump is re-elected.  They always look like they smell a nasty fart when I say it. 

Ducey is a Trump stooge, trying to get onto Trump's radar. 

Except that he didn't, He was a good two weeks after Trump made his appeal for the states to open before Arizona started opening up. 

I know this because I actually wrote to him to complain that he wasn't starting to open things up, in spite of the statistics that I have seen that says COVID-19 isn't any more dangerous than the flu unless you are at an extreme age or have a serious underlying condition. 

A thing I see on FB is folks politicizing this by almost celebrating when a state with a governor they dislike is doing poorly.  Some were almost giddy when NY was posting terrible numbers, and others seem the same when they focus on AZ or FL or TX.  They like to say "SEE!!!  I TOLD you this would happen because that governor is a D/R!!!!"

And of course they only point to the states that are experiencing whatever fits their world view and ignore the rest.

I ignore all idiots that post political crap of ANY persuasion on Facebook, makes life very pleasant.

From the NYT.

Europe vs. the U.S.

The combined death count in those 16 European countries (about 121,000) remains higher than in the U.S. (about 117,000). But at the current pace, the U.S. toll will be higher by next week.