The low numbers are because TX isn’t testing much. In my county, we had a drive thru test tent a couple weeks ago but it was only for healthcare workers so imagine it is the same everywhere. Our dept. of health person says of the 3 confirmed cases, she knows of a dozen more for each of those but they aren’t in the official counts because she can’t test them.
Bottom line, whatever the official CDC number is add another zero or two.
The low testing has made it completely impossible to intelligently make any sort of projections....very frustrating...I have no clue what is happening in Texas, where the numbers are going, how well mitigation is happening etc—and neither do any fake or real “experts”.
Hospitalization and intensive care rates would be the best proxy, but that data is not readily available at the county or state level.
Deaths of course is a very lagging indicator, probably three weeks or more...