Houston area gets failing score on social distancing, according to report

We got an F

Houstonians apparently aren't so good at the whole social distancing thing, according to data from a new report. Photo by Getty Images

According to a study that evaluated social distancing execution in counties, the Houston area didn't do so well and earned failing scores all around.

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.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

A Houston company focused on event production is helping its clients navigate a socially distant, increasingly digital time. Photo courtesy of VISION Production Group

Houston entrepreneur turns focus to digital connections during COVID-19 outbreak

Q&A

It's no secret that the events and conferences of the world have been hit hard by the coronavirus as everyone focuses on staying home and socially distant. But for a Houston entrepreneur who's worked for over a decade in event production, she sees an opportunity to advance her clients' digital presences.

Tracey Shappro, CEO and founder of Houston-based VISION Production Group, has had to reinvent the way brands and companies could interact with their audiences and get their message out.

"We've got to leverage all of these ways to communicate that are not based on group experiences," she tells InnovationMap. "And I think this position is really going to help our clients make the right decisions and [allow them to] have options on how they want to communicate and engage their audiences."

Shappro sat down with InnovationMap to talk about how to use technology to make events virtual due to the coronavirus pandemic.

InnovationMap: You’ve previously said you became a business owner, almost by accident. How did you decide to start a business?

Tracey Shappro: I never intended to be a business owner. I started the company, simply out of really a work ethic and a sense of responsibility. I had been working at another production company on staff for 13 years as their senior producer. One day the owner announced that he was shutting the doors down literally that same day, and I, like everyone else that worked at that company, was suddenly unemployed.

But at the same time, I was in the middle of producing all of these important projects for clients. There was just no way I was going to let these people down, and I put my own money into starting a company really quickly. I just thought I was going to finish these projects and then look for a full-time job. But, you know, fast forward that was 10 years ago.

VISION is celebrating our 10 year anniversary with a very impressive client roster started with one employee and we've grown to 10 people who are very talented producers and editors and the animators, and we have creative visual artists on staff. And through that time, we've also expanded our service offering from our core in video production to all types of event production services, and we've expanded it to interactive and virtual reality and augmented reality, projection mapping.

IM: VISION has been creating immersive experiences for Greater Houston Partnership, major sports events from the Super Bowl to the Houston Rodeo. How has technology like virtual and augmented reality and 3D mapping influenced Houston’s biggest events?

TS: Well, we're in the business of what I call experience design. We look at all the stakeholders, the clients, sponsors, attendees as the stakeholders or the audience, and we understand storytelling and the producing of content. We use all of that to create perspective and to create an experience and in tandem with that, we seek out the right presentation technology to exceed that goal to use technology to persuade, and influence opinions, change perceptions.

For all the clients that you just mentioned, we use appropriate technology, but it's not technology just for technology's sake. It has to have to work and it has to work for the audience and the intended audience, whether it's a live event, or a side of a building where we're doing projection mapping. These days, we're doing more streamed events or a pre-produced packaged event.

We're doing a lot of permanent installation and interactive touch and, and even augmented reality, which is taking off for a lot of corporate clients who are wanting to really showcase their projects or their products and how they work.

IM: The cancelation of the Houston Rodeo has affected many vendors and business owners. How has this affected VISION and its employees?

TS: Well, it's really strange and surreal across industries, many businesses and organizations are right now facing you know canceling or postponing their events or their meetings or conferences. These are engagements that they really depend on. All of these companies still have a need to get their message out and they still have a need to engage their customer and they need to sell the products or services and they need to enlist support for that.

None of that goes away. Right now this is an opportunity really for VISION to do what we do best. We help companies engage their target audiences in innovative and effective ways. We're encouraging our clients now to really shift their thinking. Instead of canceling their event, we're showing them how to reinvent their events into an alternate format.

At times when you can't meet face to face, it puts a need on more of the other things like pre-produced package events, and marketing and virtual meetings and all types of streamed events. All these things become even better business tools, and we have been in this business for a long time. It's really working with our clients to protect developing business.

We're taking the same experience that they want it to originate through live event execution and crafting it and reshaping it into a visual and sensory experience that they can still engage their audiences with remotely or bringing a brand to life remotely.

IM: As the coronavirus outbreak continues and people take social distancing measures seriously, how do you see this affecting projects for this year? How will you adapt?

TS: We actually have a pretty robust plan, in anticipation of all of this we assigned teams. We have a communication strategy, and it's in full gear for two to four weeks. So we were prepared to do all of this from home and remotely.

The thing that changes is some of the tools we use. Obviously, live events are not going to be the main focus right now, but there are other tools like staging and production. And so again, we shift to our virtual service offerings. And no matter what we're doing, clients will need our strategy. They need our producer services, they need our production management, and they need our expertise. It's just the end deliverable.

IM: How can technology help during this crisis? Does this expand or contract business?

TS: Technology is evolving. We know, it's our job to keep abreast of it. And we strive to stay one step ahead of it. And augmented reality and virtual reality is a great example. Several years ago, we went down the path of virtual reality and helped clients really understand that type of immersive experience. And then augmented reality really took off.

We've been leaders in offering all types of augmented reality services. It's really very exciting. It's like surfing the world, if you will, with your own layer, augmented reality over it. The possibilities are just endless.

But now looking at the situation we're in with the coronavirus all of these technologies are even more important. We've got to leverage all of these ways to communicate that are not based on group experiences. And I think this position is really, going to help our clients make the right decisions and they can have options on how they want to communicate and engage their audiences. We're working right now with two clients in a very progressive manner.

IM: What are those two projects and how have they pivoted?

TS: We're working with The Kinder Institute for Urban Research. Every year we produce their 1,800 attendees annual luncheon, showcasing Steven Kleinberg's renowned Houston area survey, which is a coveted piece of information and data that helps steer the community forward. We've shifted into producing and packaging their thought of it now into a pre-produced virtual experience that will air at the same time as the original luncheon. It will be available online in perpetuity for probably a year until the next one.

We're still able to use technology to still engage their audience and this will actually extend their audience to new audiences that may not have participated before, and we're also in pre-production of a broadcast version of the Holocaust Museum Houston's Moral Courage Award. It will be just like turning on a television show — we're taking them from the original goals of the live event and producing it into a 60-minute show that they can now send out to their attendees, who can still participate and we can still honor all these great amazing people who are deserving of the moral courage award. We can help them grow their audiences through virtual technology.

So again, what is the need? What is the goal, what is the best technology to use to create impact and to share brand stories? We can use our storytelling and capabilities and our production value for a really great experience for viewers at home who are watching this to be engaged in.

IM: What's next for VISION?

TS: We're going to do everything we can to help our clients in these very strange times. We're going to be leaders in helping them push out their objectives. We're going to step up and do what we can to help people communicate with you times like these, you know, communication is key. We do this for a living and we really want to help make a difference. We care. We know our clients care, and right now we're going to focus on helping our clients connect.

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This conversation has been edited for clarity.

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UH lands $1.2M NIH grant to fight superbugs using AI, quantum sensing

drug defense

The fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA is getting science fiction-like upgrades at the University of Houston thanks to a new four-year, $1.26 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

The university says the recent funding brings total federal support up to $3.5 million for 11 years for the project, which uses AI and quantum-sensing technology to better understand how bacterial proteins develop resistance to drugs.

Any medical professional will tell you that one of the worst things that can happen is almost killing an infection. Bacteria that survive attacks from conventional antibiotic treatments emerge tougher, more resistant and more aggressive than before–making them much harder to treat. A good example is the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

UH chemistry professors Yuhong Wang and Shoujun Xu are working on this issue. They know full well that fighting superbugs requires new technology and new approaches, which is what they aim to pioneer with their new grant.

“Drug-resistant bacterial infections such as MRSA are becoming harder to treat, creating an urgent need for faster ways to understand how antibiotics and other small molecules interact with bacterial proteins,” Wang said in a news release.

Wang and Xu’s work centers around GTP, a cellular fuel that can cause tiny changes to a cell's structure when it mutates. Sometimes, those shape changes make it easier for drugs to breach the wall and attack the cells.

The UH scientists are employing AlphaFold, an AI-powered tool that can scan large molecular libraries in seconds. From these models, they can see promising drug combinations for future testing.

Once identified, the team uses their invention, super-resolution force spectroscopy, to monitor the cells. Tiny magnetic beads are attached to genetic material, then magnified to see how strong that material is when pulled. They can measure this incredible microscopic process through an atomic magnetometer, typically used in quantum physics. Combined, all these tools allow a high-definition look at how each molecule might respond to new chemical approaches.

“We're the only chemists in the world that use an atomic magnetometer for biological research,” Xu said. “It's a technique developed by physicists, and there is usually a gap between techniques developed by physicists and biological applications. Yuhong and I have been bridging that gap together for the past 10 years.”

Eventually, Wang and Xu hope to develop powerful software that can be used by drug manufacturers to model cellular responses. With enough predictive data, the software could even get ahead of superbugs’ own mutation, allowing drugs to be developed before new strains arrive.

"We want an algorithm where you input a protein sequence, score the mutation hotspots, and develop new inhibitors before a drug-resistant species even emerges," Wang added.

SpaceX to get more than 700 acres of Texas wildlife refuge in land swap

Space News

A federal judge on Monday, September 21, refused to block the Trump administration from giving SpaceX more than 700 acres of wildlife refuge as part of a land swap in Texas, while environmental groups vowed to continue their legal challenge.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. declined the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the parcel exchange, saying they failed to prove it would worsen ecological risks to a Gulf Coast region already transformed by billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket operations.

In June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved moving forward with the deal with SpaceX, which would surrender 683 acres the company owns in exchange for the federal land in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The 103,000-acre refuge spans four counties along the Texas border and is home to animal habitats and historical landmarks.

Maps show the land SpaceX would acquire would be closer to the company's launchpad near the U.S.-Mexico border.

The swap amounts to a gift of public lands to SpaceX, “clearing the way for bulldozers to tear into this wildlife refuge as soon as next week and turn a public treasure into a private payday,” said Laiken Jordahl, a spokesperson with the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed the lawsuit alongside other opponents including tribal groups. Jordahl said Monday that the litigation will continue even as the exchange goes forward.

“This court order is not the final word. These lands hold incredible spiritual, historical and conservation value for the people and wildlife of South Texas. We won’t stop fighting to keep this irreplaceable public wildlife refuge safe from SpaceX bulldozers,” Jordahl said in a statement.

The lawsuit asks the federal court to halt the exchange, which has worried SpaceX opponents in the area who have long criticized the company's expanding footprint over lost access to beaches and concerns over exploding rockets.

The Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t respond to a request for comment on Monday’s decision. Previously, a spokesperson had said the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation.

The agency issued a final environmental assessment report in June that determined the exchange would cause no significant impact to the area. The report said the federal government believed the acquisition would represent a “net conservation benefit” and provide “substantial long-term conservation value and improving landscape-scale habitat connectivity across refuges in South Texas.”

The judge said that the plaintiffs offered “relatively weak” evidence of environmental harm.

“While they rightfully argue that the preservation of wildlife and historical lands furthers the public interest, they present no evidence demonstrating that the Property will suffer aesthetic, environmental, cultural, or historical degradation during the pendency of this lawsuit,” Rodriguez wrote in his ruling.

In addition, the judge said a preliminary injunction would result in modifications to SpaceX’s development plans, “placing additional hardship on the company’s ability to meet milestones and contractual obligations.”

SpaceX did not return an email seeking comment on the judge's ruling.

The space exploration company first broke ground in Texas more than a decade ago and has expanded rapidly, so much that SpaceX employees last year voted to incorporate their own local government called Starbase.

Rice Alliance, Greentown name winners of Houston Energy and Climate Week pitch competitions

winner winners

Approximately 100 startups from around the world pitched their breakthrough technologies and businesses during Houston Energy and Climate Week, with a select few taking home top prizes and bragging rights.

Each year, investors at the Rice Alliance Energy Technology Venture Forum name the 10 most-promising startups. Greentown's Climatetech Summit also culminates in a pitch event, where member companies can earn cash prizes.

Here's who won at two of the week's anchor events and competitions.

Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum

The 23nd annual event was held Thursday, Sept. 17, at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. The most-promising companies were selected by industry experts and participating investors attending the event.

The 10 most-promising companies included:

  • Australia-based Aquafortus, which has developed a non-thermal liquid to liquid desalination technology for resource recovery from wastewater brine
  • Houston-based Focis AI, which converts industrial laser scans into a queryable digital twin of refineries and plants
  • Houston-based ironlattice, a semiconductor manufacturing company
  • Houston-based Licube, which has developed technology to produce ultra-high-purity lithium compounds for the fusion energy, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and high-performance solid-state battery sectors
  • Houston-based Mars Materials, a clean chemical manufacturing business that is working to convert captured carbon into resources, such as carbon fiber and wastewater treatment chemicals
  • Dallas-based MCatalysis, which has developed a suite of proprietary microwave-driven catalysts to produce high-quality, ready-to-use fuels compatible with existing infrastructure
  • Oslo, Norway-based OTee, an automation machinery manufacturer
  • Houston-based Pike Robotics, which deploys its Wall-Eye robot to inspect hazardous tanks without taking assets offline
  • New Mexico-based Spiritus, a direct-air-capture (DAC) technology company
  • San Francisco-based UptimeAI Inc., which develops AI reasoning agents for industrial operations teams

Stellai won the People's Choice Award. The Norwegian company develops AI products for the waste management industry.

The energy technology ventures selected to participate in the forum were named earlier this year. See the full list here, and read about last year's winners here.

Greentown Lab's Climatetech Summit

The annual summit was held Wednesday, Sept. 16, featured a number of Houston startups in its pitch competition and lighting pitch round. Judges included Dave Dreessen,, Jon Greene, Naval Preet Singh, Philip Llewellyn, Erin Madro, Justin Yeung, Jay Kim, Rawand Rasheed and Moji Karimi.

Pitch winners included:

  • First place: Elementium Materials' CEO Matthew Dawson, winning a $10,000 cash prize sponsored by TotalEnergies plus another $10,000 in legal services sponsored by Foley Hoag. The company develops advanced battery electrolytes. It is a Greentown Boston member; though Dawson is based in Houston.
  • Second place: Houston-based Solidec CEO and co-founder Ryan DuChanois, winning $5,000 in legal services sponsored by Foley Hoag. The company electrolyzes air, water and electricity into onsite hydrogen peroxide.

Lightening pitch winners included:

  • First place: Montana-based MagDrive Technologies, winning a $1,000 cash prize sponsored by Energy Transition Ventures. The company develops magnetically actuated, zero-emission valve systems that eliminate fugitive emissions and improve reliability.
  • Second place: Houston-based HEXASpec, winning a $500 cash prize sponsored by Foley Hoag. The company has created a new material to improve heat management for the semiconductor industry.

Read Greentown's recap of the summit here.

Houston Energy and Climate Week announced that the 2027 event will move to the spring, held April 4-10.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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