With cases of the coronavirus surging to record levels in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott recommended Tuesday that Texans stay home as much as possible and for the first time moved to allow the tightening of two kinds of restrictions that had been eased under his reopening plan.
“We want to make sure that everyone reinforces the best safe practices of wearing a mask, hand sanitization, maintaining safe distance, but importantly, because the spread is so rampant right now, there’s never a reason for you to have to leave your home,” Abbott said during an early-afternoon interview with KBTX-TV in Bryan. “Unless you do need to go out, the safest place for you is at your home.”
Within hours, Abbott made two announcements to alter the reopening process. He scaled back a previous statewide order and gave local officials the ability to place restrictions on outdoor gatherings of over 100 people, a threshold he originally set at 500 people. And Abbott said the state would enact mandatory health standards for child care centers after prior rules became voluntary earlier this month.
The moves came a day after Abbott said at a news conference that the coronavirus was spreading at an “unacceptable rate” but did not offer any new policies to stem the virus’ spread. Instead, he reiterated long-established guidelines such as social distancing and pointed out that the state was increasingly cracking down on businesses that allow large crowds. At the news conference, Abbott also encouraged Texans to stay home, albeit in less explicit terms than he did in the KBTX interview.
The Monday news conference marked a newly urgent tone by Abbott, which he continued into Tuesday. During TV interviews in the noon hour, he made the somewhat unusual move of getting ahead of the state’s daily announcement of new coronavirus cases, bracing audiences for a new record high exceeding 5,000 — a big increase over the last peak of 4,430 on Saturday.
Before sharing the new record figure with KBTX, Abbott said he was trying to “make sure people around the state really comprehend the magnitude of the challenge we’re dealing with.”
By the end of the afternoon, the state Department of State Health Services had reported the precise number: 5,489 new cases.
At the same time, two metrics that Abbott has prioritized — hospitalization levels and positivity rate — continued to trend in the wrong direction. Hospitalizations reached 4,092, marking the 12th straight day of a new peak. The positivity rate — or the ratio of cases to tests, presented by the state as a seven-day average — reached 9.76%, back to the level it was at in mid-April.
The Texas Medical Center’s intensive care capacity could be exceeded as soon as Thursday because of the surge in COVID-19 patients, the hospital system projects.
A TMC model also predicts ICU surge capacity — extra, temporary beds and equipment used in emergencies — could be exceeded as soon as July 6 if the steep rate of new COVID hospitalizations continues, the most aggressive modeling to date.
Eleven leaders of the system’s member hospitals and medical schools said in a joint statement that COVID-related admissions were increasing at an “alarming rate,” stretching the capacity of ICU units. Texas Children’s Hospital this week began admitting adult patients to handle the surge.
“If this trend continues, our hospital system capacity will become overwhelmed, leading us to make difficult choices of delaying much-needed non-COVID care to accommodate a greater number of COVID patients,” the group wrote.
The leaders urged residents to stay home when possible, practice social distancing and wear masks.
Houston employers ought to send workers back home from the office if possible due to spiking coronavirus cases in the region, the region’s leading business group said Wednesday.
Bob Harvey, the president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, said in a statement that Houston COVID-19 cases are reaching a “critical point” and that employers need to do their part in helping to curb what he called an “alarming trajectory.”
“We encourage employers to strongly consider returning to a work-from-home model,” Harvey said. “To keep our Houston economy moving forward, we must all do our part.”
On Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott asked Texans to voluntarily stay home if possible.
We’re basically back where we were in March and April, with county governments still trying to figure out what to do without clear direction from the state and a complete abdication of responsibility from the White House. The Texas Restaurant Association is calling for a statewide face mask mandate, a thing that is very much necessary now but could have done so much more good a month ago when we were in this mad stupid rush to reopen everything. Imagine if we could have been able to reopen without thousands of people getting sick every day? Too bad, that’s not how it went. What we’re doing now – and what we’re still not doing because Greg Abbott still isn’t doing it – is definitely too late. If we’re very lucky, maybe it won’t be too little. The Chron has more.
UPDATE: Oh, the irony.
Visitors from Texas will soon have to quarantine for 14 days if they travel to New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut, according to the three states’ governors, who also took aim at Texas’ handling of the coronavirus outbreak on Wednesday.
The move comes as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations hit record highs in Texas, surpassing 5,000 new cases in a single day on Tuesday and making the state one of the country’s coronavirus hotspots.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, and Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut, all Democrats, held a joint press conference Wednesday to announce the policy, which will affect nine states whose infection rates have met thresholds indicating “significant community spread,” including Texas, Arizona, and Florida, according to reports.
“We need to do things right inside the four walls in our respective states,” Murphy told reporters.
The restriction on Texas travelers marks a notable shift in which states are being flagged nationwide for the most alarming increases of coronavirus cases. Earlier in the pandemic, Texas touted comparatively low hospitalization rates and was pointing the finger at other states where the virus was raging.
In late March, Texas imposed a 14-day quarantine on travelers from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington, and California – some of the early coronavirus hotspots. The state also mandated quarantines for those driving or flying to Texas from neighboring Louisiana as well as flying from Miami, Atlanta, Detroit, and Chicago. Those orders have since been lifted.
Abbott did not respond to a request for a comment for this story, but that’s all right. We know what he’d have said: He’s “concerned, but not alarmed”. You’re welcome.
The materials that were used to set up medical tents in the Reliant complex- does Harris Co. still have all of that?
Something is rotten in the state of Texas.
Yup, may have dismantled the makeshift facility in Reliant’s parking lot a little to soon…
Trying to time that was tough, so I’m not going to point fingers. I thought I read/saw somewhere that they could put that back up if needed. I hope I remember correctly.
Judge Hidalgo said a couple of weeks ago that they were prepared to re-establish the medical complex at Reliant, though in a slightly different form. Good thing too, since we’re probably going to need it.
I wonder if we can get a notable public figure to do the ribbon cutting at the emergency COVID hospital complex.
Abbott seems to have a lot of time on his hands not doing anything. Maybe he is available.
Why not have Hizzoner, Lizzie Fletcher, She-Jack and the other luminaries who presided over a 60,000 person protest/riot/superspreader event do the ribbon cutting? I’d say they earned the right.
Maybe invite the employees of Cafe Express and the Verizon store who were put out of work by the looters to participate, too!
60,000 racial justice protestors with masks vs 60,000 GOP mask naysaying Karen’s. Hmmmm. I’m going with the Karen leader Gov Abbott.
You are crying about a couple of stores?!…Just wait til we are literally ground zero for the biggest clusterf*** response by GOP Trump lovin’ Abbott and thousands of business are shutdown because of the inept response and we have to shut down again.
Republicans don’t deal with facts, they deal in hate, just look at our local neighborhood haters use of words
Why not have Hizzoner, Lizzie Fletcher, She-Jack
First name is referring to our Mayor, and the last to our congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
They are out to destroy America and make it like Russia.