We’re keeping track of the most up-to-date news about the coronavirus in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. Check back for updates.

Abbott directs state agencies to test all nursing home residents, staff for coronavirus

Gov. Greg Abbott directed state agencies Monday to develop a plan to test all nursing home residents and staff for the novel coronavirus.

Nursing homes have become hot spots for the virus’ outbreak in Texas, and an elderly man who lived in an Arlington retirement center was the first to die from COVID-19 in Tarrant County.

Abbott instructed the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the Texas Division of Emergency Management and the Texas Department of State Health Services to develop and implement a plan based on the guidance of Vice President Mike Pence and Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator.

Abbott’s announcement came shortly after the White House recommended governors test all nursing home residents and staff within the next two weeks.

“The State of Texas is working to rapidly expand our testing capacity — especially among vulnerable populations in Texas nursing homes,” Abbott said in a statement Monday. “This important collaboration among HHSC, TDEM, and DSHS will ensure that any potential clusters of COVID-19 cases in nursing homes are quickly detected and contained.”

Inmates, families fear worst for Fort Worth federal prison ‘consumed’ by coronavirus

The last time Veronica Chavez talked to her uncle, he was afraid.

Guadalupe Ramos, 56, an inmate at FMC Fort Worth, had just tested positive for coronavirus, was short of breath and sounded like he had already given up when he spoke to his niece by phone from the prison.

It was April 23 — 15 days after the first inmate at Federal Medical Center Fort Worth tested positive for coronavirus. At least 131 people inside the medical prison for men had COVID-19 at that time. As of Monday, 636 inmates — 43% of the total population — had tested positive. Five have died and four are listed as recovered, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.

Two days after testing positive, Ramos, who also had diabetes, a chronic lung disease and hepatitis, was rushed to the hospital.

On May 10, he died after being in a coma for about two weeks.

“We’re holding up as best as we can,” Chavez said. “We were hoping he would be coming home alive versus him coming home in a casket.”

Inmates and their families echoed Chavez’s fear that time at FMC Fort Worth amounts to a possible death sentence. Most of the inmates are convicted of drug crimes and have medical needs, including a 38-year-old former basketball player hoping for release on good behavior, a man sick with coronavirus as he serves time for a marijuana conviction, and a 78-year-old who celebrated his birthday days before he died of coronavirus and weeks before he was scheduled to receive compassionate release.

Inmates seeking release from infected Fort Worth prison are in race against coronavirus

Many inmates at Federal Medical Center Fort Worth fear their only safe way out of the prison, where nearly half the inmates have coronavirus, is through compassionate release or home confinement.

But the process for release is often too slow or too selective, attorneys and families say, and officers say the criteria change frequently.

While the U.S. attorney general ordered federal prisons to thin their populations to curb the spread of coronavirus, many fear their release will come too late, as it was for Oscar Ortiz.

Ortiz celebrated his 78th birthday inside FMC Fort Worth prison on March 5.

His fellow inmates threw him a birthday party with tacos and cake, also celebrating Ortiz’s upcoming release from the prison. He had been granted compassionate release due to his health conditions coupled with the coronavirus spreading throughout the prison.

He was set to go home on May 5 and hoped to meet his great-grandchildren, a fellow inmate said. Ortiz had been in prison for 18 years, nine of which were at FMC Fort Worth, for running a drug operation in Idaho.

On April 13, Ortiz tested positive for COVID-19. He died nine days later.

Fort Worth ISD to host in-person graduation celebrations after backlash amid coronavirus

The Fort Worth school district announced it will host in-person graduation celebrations from June 23 to 26 after facing backlash for its plans for a virtual graduation.

The celebrations are voluntary and will take place at Farrington Field or Clark Stadium, the district’s two largest outdoor athletic venues. The in-person parties depend on public health conditions and will follow social distancing protocols, the district said in a press release.

Fort Worth ISD is hosting virtual graduations on June 20, in which 5,000 seniors will be able to join an online streaming event. The students can share a photo of themselves in a cap and gown and personalized video messages as they “move the tassel.”

Superintendent Kent P. Scribner met with 25 senior class presidents in an online conference call last week and agreed to add the option of in-person celebrations, which will have limited audience members.

“When I met with the student leaders via Zoom last week, I was impressed with their maturity and their understanding of the complex situation we all now face,” Scribner said in the press release. “Their commitment to doing the right thing for everyone was impressive.”

Fort Worth ER doctor who joined fight against coronavirus pandemic dies in plane crash

A Fort Worth ER doctor died in a plane crash on Thursday, according to a GoFundMe created in his name.

Daniel Scott Piotrowski was on the front lines fighting coronavirus at the Fort Worth Texas Health Huguley emergency room, according to social media posts.

Piotrowski was 51 and born in Porter Ranch, California, his obituary said, and he leaves behind a wife and two children.

“His strength and his love during his time here was a reflection of the strength, love, grace and compassion that lived in him through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” his sister, Dani Piotrowski Hall, posted on Facebook. “He lived his faith; he did not just speak it.”

The family recently moved back to Texas in September 2019 after Piotrowski took a leave of absence to serve as a doctor in New Zealand, the GoFundMe said. Soon, “the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, compelling Scott, as an ER doctor, to answer the call,” the GoFundMe said.

During this time, Piotrowski’s life insurance policy lapsed. The week before he had an appointment to reinstate it, he died in the plane crash. Piotrowski was flying a single-engine Cessna 210 when the plane crashed in Burleson about a mile south of Fort Worth Spinks Airport.

More Tarrant County jail inmates, staff positive for coronavirus, but recoveries rise

The number of Tarrant County jail inmates who have tested positive for the coronavirus has increased, but so has the number of recovered inmates.

The number of inmates still diagnosed with COVID-19 is 55, while 50 who tested positive with the disease have recovered, according to Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department figures.

Meanwhile, the number of jail staff diagnosed with COVID-19 has grown from 18 to 29 since May 1, while the total jail population has increased from 3,385 to 3,473 in the same span. Six jail staff members have recovered, a news release from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department said.

Tarrant County reports first coronavirus deaths in some cities, 50 new cases

Tarrant County reported 50 new coronavirus cases and one death on Monday, a day after a single-day high 485 cases.

Of the record cases reported on Sunday, 423 were confirmed at the federal medical prison for men in Fort Worth.

The latest death is a Keller man in his 90s. Two deaths were reported Sunday — a Kennedale woman in her 80s and a Bedford man in his 50s. All three had underlying health conditions, according to Tarrant County health officials. These cases mark the fifth reported pandemic death in Keller and the first in both Kennedale and Bedford.

The county has confirmed 3,745 COVID-19 cases, including 104 deaths and 806 recoveries. Of the 104 deaths, 63 have been Fort Worth residents.

On Monday, 196 of the county’s hospital beds were occupied by known COVID-19 patients. More than 2,000 beds and almost 400 ventilators were available.

‘Too early to call this a plateau.’ Dallas County ties record with 253 coronavirus cases

Dallas County matched a single-day high in new coronavirus cases with 253 on Monday and surpassed more than 6,000 total cases.

It’s the ninth consecutive day the county has reported more than 200 new pandemic cases. The county also reported two more deaths — two female residents of long-term care facilities in Dallas and Seagoville. One was in her 60s and one was in her 80s.

Dallas County has confirmed 6,123 COVID-19 cases, including 145 deaths.

“The last seven days have been flat,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said in a news release. “It’s too early to call this a plateau at the peak but that would be consistent with the medical models from early April done before the Governor’s orders reopening businesses.”

Texas approved to give more aid to families missing free or reduced-price school meals

Texas will be able to give additional assistance to families with children who would have otherwise received free or reduced-price meals at school before closures sparked by the novel coronavirus outbreak.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced Monday that Texas was approved to operate Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer, more commonly known as Pandemic EBT. The program, authorized by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act passed by Congress, allows families to receive additional benefits equal to the value of free or reduced-price meals that their children would normally receive at school.

To be eligible for free or reduced-price meals, families must meet certain income requirements based on the size of their household. Children in households with incomes at or below 130% of the federal poverty level are eligible for free school meals, and households with incomes up to 185% of the federal poverty level are eligible for reduced-price meals.

Some programs automatically qualify families for free school meals, including if they are Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, recipients, according to the USDA.

Federal lawsuit challenges provisions of Texas’ vote-by-mail laws amid coronavirus

A coalition of civil rights groups and Texas voters are suing the state over vote-by-mail requirements that they argue will disenfranchise voters even amid expanded eligibility due to the coronavirus outbreak.

In a federal lawsuit filed Monday in San Antonio against Secretary of State Ruth Hughs, the groups argue that the poor, elderly and other vulnerable populations have historically relied on in-person voting — which they anticipate will still be unsafe to do by November.

As a result, the groups — which include Texas Alliance for Retired Americans, Voto Latino and the Texas State Conference of the NAACP — are challenging four provisions of Texas Election Code in an effort to ensure vulnerable populations’ right to vote-by-mail will not be restricted.

What Mark Cuban’s ‘secret shoppers’ found about how Dallas businesses handled reopening

Dallas Mavericks owners Mark Cuban hired a company to investigate how Dallas-area businesses handled reopening from the pandemic lockdown last week.

He posted the results on his blog.

“I wanted to get an understanding of what opening meant to businesses around Dallas. Were they opening? What precautions were they taking? Were employees in safe environments? And bigger picture, I wanted to know if these are places that I would feel safe taking my family to,” Cuban wrote on his blog.

Cuban hired Shift Smart, which specializes in business workforce analytics to study how Dallas businesses were responding to the governor’s open order in Texas. The study was conducted May 1-3. Cuban says the company will conduct a couple more studies “so we can learn what the trends are and try to learn from it.”

Shift Smart called 1,000 restaurants and retail locations based on popularity and visited 300 to “assess compliance” with the state reopening protocols.

They found that 36% of businesses chose to open over the first three days of the opening and 96% of those businesses weren’t compliant with all mandatory protocols.

Fort Worth is moving forward to buy land despite the coronavirus budget crunch

An ambitious plan from the city to buy open space around Fort Worth and preserve the land in its natural state is moving forward despite a budget crunch related to the coronavirus pandemic.

The city expects to close this month on a $610,000 deal to buy the 53-acre Broadcast Hill property adjacent to the Tandy Hill Natural Area in east Fort Worth. It is the first step in a broad plan to buy open space ahead of urban sprawl, with the goal of preserving the Texas landscape while helping to mitigate flooding.

Before the coronavirus outbreak, the city’s robust growth consumed 2,800 acres of Texas prairie a year for housing divisions, strip malls and warehouses. To lessen the effect on the environment, city planners in December pitched a partnership with the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit that advocates for public open space and helps cities develop park plans.

The deal is funded with $60,000 raised by the nonprofit Friends of the Tandy Hill Natural Area, but the rest comes from cash the city had on hand from its oil and gas trust fund.

That fund is how the city planned to pay for dozens of other yet-identified properties worth preserving. Early speculation included the Sycamore and Mary’s Creek watersheds as well as property around Lake Arlington.

But the fund has taken a nearly 15% hit due to the recession, according to a city analysis of the trust fund through March.

This story was originally published May 12, 2020 at 6:39 AM.