ALARMIST HEADLINE: Texas Cases of Covid 19 Increasing By Thousands Since Reopening.
But several paragraphs down in the story we learn it’s because of more testing:
Gov. Greg Abbott’s communications director John Wittman told ABC News that the amount of testing has doubled since reopening, contributing to the rise in cases.
“Since [COVID-19 testing] started, we did 330,000 tests in March and April. Since May 1, we have done over 330,000 — so in 16 days we have doubled our testing from the previous entire two months,” Wittman said.
“The governor has been clear that as the state of Texas conducts more tests, we will see the raw number of cases rise,” Wittman said. “However, the [rolling seven-day] average positivity rate has steadily declined from our high April 13 [of a bit more than 13%] to around 5% today. Our hospitalizations remain steady, and Texas has one of the lowest death rates per capita in the nation.”
To ABC’s credit, the headline was changed to read “Texas COVID-19 cases rise, governor’s office says more testing being done.” But the original headline is preserved in the URL, and lets you know the narrative they wanted to push.