Abbott to reveal plans next week related to reopening Texas businesses amid coronavirus
Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday he would be issuing an executive order next week that will address reopening businesses while maintaining health and safety as the number of cases of the novel coronavirus continues to rise in Texas.
“We will focus on protecting lives while restoring livelihoods. We can and we must do this. We can do both: expand and restore the livelihoods that Texans want to have by helping them return to work,” Abbott said from the Texas Capitol.
When asked whether most Texans will have to have been tested for COVID-19 in order to go back to work, Abbott said testing would be an aspect, but that more details would come next week.
“I will tell you that testing will be a component of it. And we will operate very strategically. We want to open up. But we want to open up safely, knowing that if we do it too fast without the appropriate strategies, it will just lead to a potential closure because of another outbreak of COVID-19,” Abbott said.
His announcement comes amid record job losses. According to figures released by the U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday, more than 761,000 Texans have filed for unemployment in the past four weeks — more than the total number of claims filed in the state for all of 2019.
On a call organized by the Republican Party of Texas, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Friday he wants Texas to be ready to revitalize the economy as soon as feasible, and pointed to the first week of May as a possible date — the same time that Abbott’s current executive order requiring Texans to stay home unless participating in activities deemed “essential” by the state is set to end.
“There’s no question, we’re not going to open up everything immediately. But it will be done in phases. But we need to get started, and I hope that’s the first week of May, barring any unforeseen big spikes here in Texas and some other states around the country,” Patrick said on the call. “Obviously, New York won’t be ready to do that.”
Abbott said previously his statewide orders may be extended based on the spread of COVID-19 in Texas and the recommendations of federal officials. When asked about Patrick’s timeline of early May, Abbott said the desire for Texans to return to work must be balanced with measures to keep people safe.
“Understandably, if everyone were to rush the doors and go back into the job market overnight, we would see an outbreak of COVID-19 again,” Abbott said. “That’s exactly why I’m issuing the executive order next week establishing what the statewide standards will be in the coming days about what the approach is.”
Abbott said the order has been crafted with input from the White House and federal officials to ensure it meets the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines.
As of Friday afternoon, the Texas Department of State Health Services was reporting nearly 116,000 Texans had been tested, with 11,671 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Of those, 1,532 Texans were currently hospitalized and there had been 226 COVID-19 related deaths. An estimated 1,366 Texans had recovered — meaning people who had previously tested positive had gone at least two weeks of being COVID-19 free, Abbott said.
While the number of cases in Texas continues to rise, officials pointed to the slowing of the amount time it takes for confirmed cases of COVID-19 to double as evidence that social distancing mandates are working.
According to a graph presented during Friday’s press conference, the weekly average time it takes for COVID-19 cases to double in Texas went from three days around late March to about 6.3 days around around April 9.
“We are beginning to slow the growth of the coronavirus,” Abbott said. “We’ve not yet reached the peak and begun on the decline yet.”
Abbott also went over graphs for some of Texas’ largest and hardest-hit counties that showed the areas’ total cases, new cases reported each day and fatalities.
Tarrant County not where it needs to be, Abbott says
When going over Tarrant County’s numbers, Abbott said the slope of the total number of cases reported is “not adequately bending to show that they are where we want them to be.”
Tarrant County reported 705 total cases as of Friday — an increase of 68 from Thursday — and reported 90 patients have recovered as of Friday morning.
Abbott said if over the next week the number of new cases reported daily begins to go down, “that will show that Tarrant County will have their situation under control.”
But the number of cases across Texas is likely higher than reported as testing has been limited. Dallas-Fort Worth residents previously reported being unable to get tested for COVID-19 even when showing symptoms, and local officials have pointed to the need for increased testing.
Abbott has pointed to tests being increasingly supplied from the private sector, and had announced last week that Texas hospitals are set to receive a shipment of 10,000 rapid COVID-19 tests from Abbott Laboratories, with the number to grow in the coming weeks.
But Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley told the Star-Telegram this week that he did not have a definite answer on who was receiving those tests.
Abbott said tests from Abbott Laboratories were being deployed based largely upon federal guidance. And he pointed to the steady rate of COVID-19 related hospitalizations and deaths in Texas as evidence that the virus is not as widespread in Texas as it is in other populous states, like New York or California.
“And because we see a steady rate of hospitalizations and a lower rate in Texas than what we see in some other states percentage-wise, we know for a fact what COVID-19 looks like in the state of Texas,” Abbott said. “People should take that as a good sign that COVID-19 — while dangerous, while still growing in the state of Texas — is not as severe as it is in some other states. “
However, Texas lags behind other states in per-capita testing. According to data compiled by Vox, Texas ranks seventh in the number of people tested, and ranks near the bottom of tests per million people.
This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 3:33 PM.
