Abbott requires health care providers to report bed capacity, coronavirus tests daily
Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order Tuesday that requires hospitals and health care providers to submit daily reports to the state on bed capacity and the number of COVID-19 tests conducted.
Abbott also stressed that additional personal protective equipment is on its way, and anticipates by next week that Texas will be receiving more than 1 million face masks a week.
“The purpose of this is to ensure that the state of Texas, every agency in the state of Texas and very importantly every private sector tester of COVID-19 is fully and quickly submitting information to the state of Texas. And the state of Texas will in turn submit the information to the CDC,” Abbott said surrounded by physicians in white lab coats at a Texas Department of Public Safety warehouse facility in Austin.
All licensed and state-run hospitals, except for psychiatric hospitals, will report daily bed capacity to the Texas Department of State Health Services. In addition, both public and private labs using “an FDA-approved test, including an emergency use authorization test,” to test for COVID-19, must report positive and negative results daily to DSHS and the local health department. DSHS will share info from both reports with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the executive order, which goes into effect midnight Tuesday and will remain in effect until rescinded or superseded.
Abbott said the new executive order, in conjunction with Sunday’s executive orders, will ensure the requests made by Vice President Mike Pence are satisfied. Pence is leading the response to the pandemic on a federal level. On Sunday, Abbott waived regulations and directed health care providers to postpone surgeries and procedures that aren’t medically necessary in an effort to increase hospital capacity.
As of Tuesday, 715 Texans have tested positive for COVID-19 and 11 have died, Abbott said citing DSHS’ figures. More than 11,000 people have been tested across 65 counties.
“You can expect the number of tests to continue to go up every single day,” Abbott said. He said the state’s goal is to “be able to test as many people as possible.”
Abbott said a shipment of 10,000 masks, suits and medical tents are being distributed across the state. The “Supply Chain Strike Force” Abbott announced Sunday also placed an order Monday for more than $80 million worth of supplies, he said.
By the end of the week, Abbott said, the strike force and the Texas Division of Emergency Management will each be receiving approximately 100,000 masks per day.
“I am proud to say that we are loaded with a lot of equipment,” Abbott said, pointing to pallets behind him with boxes of medical supplies that had been donated by various groups.
Abbott said “there is more demand than there are available supplies,” and people interested in donating medical supplies and medical professionals who can volunteer their time can go to texas.gov.
Abbott has faced mounting pressure from mayors, hospital systems and state lawmakers to order all Texans to stay at home, and previously said that more time was needed to assess the effect of his recent statewide restrictions that temporarily closed schools and gyms, prohibited dining-in at bars and restaurants, limited social gatherings to 10 people and restricted visits to nursing homes.
“On my travel to this location today, I was surprised at how many vehicles I saw on the road. It’s clear to me that we may not be achieving the level of compliance that is needed,” Abbott said. “That’s why I said before, I remain flexible in my statewide standard. And I look at data multiple times a day. I get advice from the medical profession multiple times a day. And we will continue to evaluate based upon all the data whether or not there needs to be heightened standard and stricter enforcement.”
Hours before Abbott’s Tuesday press conference, 65 members of the House Democratic Caucus — all but two — signed on to a letter to Abbott urging him to implement a statewide stay-at-home order that would close nonessential businesses and restrict travel “to the greatest extent possible.”
The letter pointed to the need to give hospital systems as much time as possible to stock up on supplies and be prepared to handle a surge in COVID-19 cases. Limiting the movement of Texans will help flatten the curve and slow the spread, the members said.
“In order to protect Texas and her people, we need to do all we can to slow the spread of COVID-19. Taking the strongest actions on a statewide basis, as opposed to a city by city and county by county approach, will flatten the curve more quickly,” the letter read.
In the last two days, officials in the state’s largest metro areas, including Dallas, Houston, Austin, Fort Worth, San Antonio and El Paso, issued stay-at-home orders, placing restrictions on nonessential businesses, limiting travel to only essential trips and more.
“You know this Sunday the governor called for people to stay home and do their part. But he charged local officials — the city mayors and the county judges — with really making the call to move to a stay-at-home order. We received that message,” Price said Tuesday morning when announcing Fort Worth’s local stay at home order.
Abbott said that the local stay-at-home orders that have been issued so far are “fairly consistent” with his statewide restrictions — except for the fact that his order allows for gatherings up to 10 people — and stressed that under his order Texans should be practicing similar social distancing measures and only leaving their homes for essential trips.
Future executive orders will be based on recommendations from the CDC, as well the advice of doctors like DSHS Commissioner John Hellerstedt, Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Abbott said.
This story was originally published March 24, 2020 at 3:24 PM.
