We were watching coverage for the Coronavirus and they were listing U.S. hotspots. Atlanta, Phoenix, Portland, McAllen. What? McAllen,Texas? We’re sitting down here in The Valley feeling so removed from the craziness; being careful, but the plague doesn’t seem to be swirling all around us, and we’re a national hotspot!?
The national news is calling us a spiking hotspot. Our cases here are going up, but it only looks alarming because the incidence is so low. It’s all about the denominator. When you have very few cases, it’s easy to get a large percentage or per capita increase. If you only have one case, you only need to have one more and your caseload has doubled! In the city of McAllen, Texas, as of today, there are 114 cumulative cases since the start of the contagion two and a half months ago. Maybe not a raging hotspot.