an f for h-town

Nearly every Houston-area county scores F on social distancing report card

Houstonians are apparently getting too close, according to a new report.

Photo by Getty Images

Every county in the Houston metro area earns a really unhealthy grade for social distancing, a data-gathering company says.

A widely used social distancing scoreboard from Unacast, a provider of location data and analytics, shows only one county in the Houston area — Austin County — received a grade above an F for social distancing as of May 20. But Austin County doesn’t have much to brag about, since its social-distancing score is a D-. The Houston area’s eight other counties, including Harris, flunked.

Relying on a huge storehouse of cellphone data, the Unacast scoreboard measures social distancing activity on a daily basis in every state and county compared with activity before the coronavirus outbreak. The scorecard assigns a letter grade of A through F based on current social-distancing behavior.

Each grade takes into account three factors:

Percentage change in average distance traveled compared with the pre-coronavirus period
Percentage change in visits to nonessential places compared with the pre-coronavirus period
Decrease in person-to-person encounters compared with the national pre-coronavirus average

So, how did Harris County, for instance, fare in those three categories? On May 20, its grade in each category was an F. Why? Because it had less than a 25 percent reduction in average mobility (based on distance traveled), less than a 55 percent reduction in nonessential visits, and less than a 40 percent decrease in “encounters density” compared with the national average.

The scoreboard indicates Harris County’s grades have bounced around. On April 4, for example, Harris County received an A in the nonessential-visit category for reducing those visits by at least 70 percent.

Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said in an interview published May 20 that he’s worried the easing of social distancing in Houston will lead to a spike in coronavirus cases.

“I think here in Houston we’re underachieving in a lot of aspects in public health, and it’s no fault of the … public health leaders,” Hotez said.

In Texas, the Houston area isn’t alone in its apparent failure, at least recently, to adhere to social-distancing guidelines.

On May 20, not a single county in the Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Antonio metro areas earned higher than a D on the Unacast report card.

All five counties in the Austin area got F’s, as did all 13 counties in Dallas-Fort Worth, according to the scoreboard.

But as with Harris County, other metro areas’ scores in individual categories have fluctuated over time. Here are a few examples:

On April 4, Travis and Dallas counties earned an A for at least a 70 percent reduction in nonessential visits.
On April 11, Tarrant County received a B for a 55 percent to 70 percent drop in average mobility.

In the San Antonio area, Bandera County earned the highest grade (D) of any county in the state’s four major metros. Atascosa and Medina counties eked out grades of D-, while the remainder of the area’s counties wound up in the F column.

In line with trends for its major-county counterparts, Bexar County’s social distancing scores in individual categories have gone up and down. On April 11, for example, Bexar County earned a B for a 55 percent to 70 percent decline in average mobility.

The scores for the state’s major metros appear to reflect the recent loosening of stay-at-home restrictions across Texas. But health experts still recommend sticking with social-distancing measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus. In fact, Unacast points out that the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cite social distancing as the “most effective way” to combat coronavirus infections.

Unacast says it launched the social-distancing scoreboard in March to enable organizations to measure and grasp the efficiency of local social-distancing efforts.

“Data can be one of society’s most powerful weapons in this public health war,” Thomas Walle, co-founder and CEO of Unacast, says in an April 16 release.

health city-news-roundup

closing the gaps

Texas no longer leads U.S. for racial progress, new report says

Photo by Jerry Kavan on Unsplash

WalletHub's report is released annually ahead of MLK Day.

Texas has been overtaken as the No. 1 state that has made the most racial progress, according to a new study.

The Lone Star State led the nation in 2025, but now ranks in third place behind Georgia (No. 1) and Mississippi (No. 2). It also ranked No. 5 nationally in the list of states with the most racial integration.

WalletHub's "States That Have Made the Most Racial Progress" study is released annually ahead of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The report compares all 50 states and the District of Columbia across 22 relevant metrics divided into two main rankings: racial integration (which the study defines as "the current integration levels of white people and Black people") and racial progress (defined as "the levels of racial progress achieved over time").

The report's author clarifies that the study focuses only on the racial integration between Black people and white people "in light of racial tensions in recent years that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement."

"We released this report ahead of the holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who played a prominent role in the Civil Rights Movement to end segregation and discrimination against Black people," the report says.

The study further divided each ranking into four main categories measuring the gaps between white people and Black people over time; spanning employment and wealth, education, social and civic engagement, and health. Texas performed the best in education and health, ranking No. 4 nationally in both categories, and it ranked in sixth place for its social and civic engagement. The state ranked 16th in the category for employment and wealth.

According to WalletHub, Texas has "done a lot" to reduce gaps in health outcomes for white and Black residents, such as reducing gaps in health insurance coverage, and reducing the share of Black Texans suffering from "poor health" and diabetes. It also notes that Texas "made the second-most progress when it comes to obesity," but it did not acknowledge the racial bias in body mass index (BMI) that has been increasingly flagged in recent years.

The report further praises Texas for reducing the gap in business ownership between white and Black Texans, and for its improvement in reducing discrimination in the parole system. WalletHub does not offer data behind the parole claim.

"It’s encouraging to look at the data and see that some states have made significant strides toward racial equality over the past few decades," said WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo regarding the overall report. "This change demonstrates that state-level policies and residents’ attitudes regarding equality have grown considerably better."

Though racial disparity gaps are closing between white and Black people, racial profiling and discrimination is still a major issue affecting Black people and other people of color across the country.

In 2023, a senate bill banned public Texas universities from having diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices and programs, prompting warnings of discrimination against Black, Hispanic, and other marginalized students, including those with disabilities.

The top 10 states with the most racial progress in 2026 are:

No. 1 – Georgia
No. 2 – Mississippi
No. 3 – Texas
No. 4 – North Carolina
No. 5 – Maryland
No. 6 – Florida
No. 7 – New Jersey
No. 8 – Massachusetts
No. 9 – Louisiana
No. 10 – New Mexico

wallethub texas report mlk day