Some Texas Counties Issue Partial Curfew for Thanksgiving weekend
Officials in the San Antonio area are following in the footsteps of El Paso County, which issued a similar order earlier this week. The curfews come as coronavirus infections surge to new levels in Texas.
Hours before Thanksgiving, San Antonio and Bexar County officials issued partial curfews that will take effect through the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Starting Thanksgiving Day, residents cannot gather outside of their homes from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Central unless they are commuting to or from a business. The curfew ends Monday, according to the amended emergency orders by San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff.
Restaurants must close their indoor and outdoor dining during curfew hours, but curbside, takeout and drive-thru options can continue as usual.
Those who violate the order can face a fine up to $1,000.
The curfew is a last minute attempt to curb social gatherings as Texas continues to see record numbers of people infected with the coronavirus.
“Please listen to our public health experts. It's not worth the risk this holiday season,” Nirenberg said in a tweet. “If you have to leave home, wear a mask & keep your distance from others.”
El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego issued a similar order late Tuesday.
Texas health officials reported more than 14,000 new coronavirus infections Wednesday in what appeared to be an all-time high for daily cases. The record comes right before the Thanksgiving holiday as public health authorities urge people to celebrate apart this year, warning that family gatherings may increase the spread of infections at a time when many Texas hospitals report overwhelming volumes of COVID-19 patients.
The seven-day average of new cases in Texas continues to surpass 10,000, having tripled since the beginning of October. Testing is also at record levels. Roughly 10% of coronavirus tests yielded positive results on Nov. 24, according to Texas Department of State Health Services data.
Mental Health During the Pandemic
Texas ranks 50th out of 51 in overall access to mental health care, reports show. Currently, only one in seven Texas children with major depression receives consistent treatment — almost half the national average.
It’s been a tough year for everyone, which can take a toll on our mental health. Texas continues to set records for COVID-19 cases, and health experts fear the holidays could exacerbate an already dangerous situation. The state has reported over 20,500 virus-related deaths, and over 8,000 were hospitalized in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.
Since March, more than 3.8 million Texans have applied for unemployment relief and teachers, parents and students have had to adjust to an abnormal school year. Add a contentious presidential election, protests against police brutality and a struggling energy sector to that mix of stressors.
Greg Hansch, the executive director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Texas, answered questions in our community Facebook group on how the pandemic has affected mental health and mental health care in the state. Below are some takeaways from our conversation. You can read the full conversation here.
What is the current availability of mental health care for Texans compared to the rest of the nation?
Texas ranks 50th out of 51 in overall access to mental health care, according to the 2021 State of Mental Health in America report.
Currently, only 1 in 7 Texas children with major depression receive consistent treatment — almost half the national average. The vast majority of children and youth with mental health disorders do not receive treatment, and those who are receiving care do not receive it when the disorder first presents itself. Data shows the delay from symptom onset to treatment averages eight to ten years.
First Episode Psychosis (FEP) impacts the health and wellbeing of approximately 3,000 Texas children and young adults each year. Texas has only 20% of the Coordinated Specialty Care program capacity needed to facilitate positive outcomes for this population. Other states have invested general revenue to ensure that more young people are able to access this gold standard in care.
In Texas, approximately 1,400 prisoners and jail inmates are awaiting competency restoration through the state psychiatric hospital system. The average number of days to obtain a maximum security and non-maximum security placement are roughly 280 and 80 days, respectively. Prolonged waits for competency restoration can worsen mental health outcomes, contribute to an over-crowded prison and jail systems, and jeopardize the safety of prisoners, inmates and prison or jail staff.
Texas has a long way to go. We have champions in the Texas Legislature. Considering the mental health impact of COVID-19, and the pre-existing mental health epidemic plus the huge gaps in our system, mental health needs to be a huge priority this legislative session.
Has Texas’ decision to not expand Medicaid impacted funding for and access to mental health care in our state? And roughly how many people has that impacted?
Access to coverage and care is essential for people with mental illness to manage their condition and get on a recovery path successfully. Medicaid is the lifeline for much of that care as the nation's largest payer of mental health and substance use condition services — providing health coverage to more than one in four of adults with a serious mental illness.
When states expand Medicaid, more people with mental health conditions can get the coverage they need to access vital care.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that over 400,000 Texans with mental health or substance use challenges could enroll in health insurance if state leaders accepted Medicaid expansion funding.
How is quarantining affecting kids and parents and their mental health? Is it worse than a businessperson being forced to close a business? Totally different?
There is research on both the mental health impact of quarantine / stay-at-home (notably, how isolation can drive depressive symptoms) and how unemployment and economic instability can have far-ranging mental effects. I can't say if one is worse than the other.
How to get help
Texas COVID-19 Mental Health Support Line: 833-986-1919
National Alliance on Mental Illness in Texas: 512-693-2000
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline: 800-662-4357
Suicide Prevention Line: 800-784-2433
Texas bar Owners are on the Brink of Losing Everything
Some bar owners are planning to reopen in defiance of the moratorium, a desperate attempt to generate income — and draw Gov. Greg Abbott’s attention.
With no end to the shutdown in sight, Texas bar owners and employees are on the brink of losing everything
"With no end to the shutdown in sight, Texas bar owners and employees are on the brink of losing everything" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Holly Jackson has spent 20 years working for the Austin nightclub Barbarella, where crowds of customers danced and drank until the early morning hours. But for months, there’s been no music or cocktails at Barbarella. And Jackson and around 30 of her employees have been furloughed.
“I have no idea what’s gonna happen to me, honestly,” said Jackson, the bar’s general manager. “I feel like I’ve lost my right arm. I have no family. I have no kids, no husband. My entire identity in life was Barbarella. And now that’s gone.”
Gov. Greg Abbott has shut down Barbarella, along with the rest of Texas’ bars, twice — once in March and again in June — in an attempt to stem the spread of the coronavirus. There is no end in sight for when bars will be allowed to reopen, leaving those business owners and their workers worried about how long they can hang on until they lose everything. In some cases, bar owners are planning to reopen anyway in a desperate attempt to generate some income — and draw Abbott’s attention.
Jackson joins thousands of service industry workers who have filed for unemployment, with restaurant and bar workers leading the state in number of claims. About 12.5% of the 3.2 million unemployment claims filed in Texas between the beginning of March and early August have come from workers in the accommodation and food services sector.
But economists say joblessness in Texas will only improve when the state has a handle on the coronavirus and consumers feel like they can safely patronize businesses in person. Still, Texas is experiencing record numbers of deaths related to the coronavirus and high numbers of hospitalizations.
While some bars can serve to-go items or reopen as restaurants, both of these options require them to have a permanent kitchen, excluding many bars across the state. Chris Porter, a spokesperson for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, said about 6,600 active businesses were required to close under the order.
Jackson said she feels abandoned by the state and is frustrated by the “radio silence” from the governor. Abbott addressed the shutdown last week, expressing sympathy for employees put out of work. But he said the closure would need to continue until coronavirus metrics improve significantly — with the state’s positivity rate dropping below 10% for a sustained period of time and the number of hospitalizations decreasing.
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But many bar owners say their businesses might not survive that long.
Last month, Elizabeth McNiel was forced to move into an RV along with her husband and 14-year-old son behind Ironwood Saloon in Sabinal.
Her husband was the bar’s general manager, and now they’re relying on her income as a school teacher to scrape by. They’ve depleted their savings and maxed out credit cards trying to keep their dream of owning a bar afloat.
“I don't want to lose a dream that we've had for years,” McNiel said. “But on Sept. 1, I will have to close these doors for good.”
The TABC recently allowed some bars and other businesses with high alcohol sales to reopen as restaurants after they applied for food and beverage certificates. However, this workaround requires businesses to have an onsite kitchen and keep alcohol sales under 51%, which excludes many bars across the state and is sometimes cost prohibitive.
Kim Finch owns two bars in Dallas, but neither has a kitchen. So she’s going all in on a third bar — a lease she signed before the pandemic began — that is under construction with a kitchen that will allow it to open as a restaurant.
But even once it’s open, she doesn’t know if it’ll be enough to offset her losses.
“I have absolutely no way to make any income or revenue to pay all the bills, taxes, rent that are due. I can’t provide jobs for my employees,” she said. “I have no way to save my businesses that I’ve worked 17 years to build. And I’m afraid I’m going to not only lose my businesses but lose my house.”
Finch has cashed out all of her investments and her life insurance policy and has depleted 15 years of savings. It’s money she won’t get back even if her businesses survive. She tried opening a pop-up market but was told that wasn’t allowed because even without alcohol, her business was still a bar.
“It’s disheartening. It’s frustrating. It’s maddening,” she said. “I understand there was bad bar operators, too, that were not adhering to guidelines, but it sucks for the ones that were trying really hard to be safe.”
Reopening in protest
Some bar owners say they have no choice but to open in defiance of the state moratorium.
Hundreds of bar owners across the state participated in a demonstration late last month called Freedom Fest, intended to prove that they could open safely. As a result, 16 bars’ liquor licenses were suspended.
Chris Polone, the event’s organizer and owner of the Rail Club Live in Fort Worth, said the event adhered to strict safety precautions — limiting capacity to 25%, requiring masks at all times and enforcing social distancing.
And last week, around 100 bar owners gathered to protest near the TABC office.
But Polone said the group hasn’t been able to discuss the situation with anyone from the TABC or from Abbott’s office.
So now, Polone said some bars are making plans for another unified reopening Aug. 29 dubbed Come and Take It.
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“We don’t have a choice. Our livelihoods are on the line,” he said. “We’re opening and we’re not closing back down.”
The hope is that if enough bars reopen, the TABC will be overwhelmed and unable to enforce the shutdown order, Polone said.
Polone said he will be selling small ownership stakes of his business instead of tickets to his customers — since he says owners of the bars are still allowed to be inside.
“We’re not selling cover charges,” he said.“We’re making everybody an owner.”
A. Bentley Nettles, executive director of the TABC, addressed rumors of bars reopening in an Aug. 7 letter to the industry.
“Recently we have spoken with business owners who tell us they don’t intend to follow the orders. On that note, I want to remind every member of this industry that it is a privilege to be in the alcoholic beverage business in Texas,” Nettles said in the letter. “When a business tells TABC it doesn’t intend to follow these orders, you leave the agency with no option but to revoke your license and shut you down.”
Porter said any business that defies Abbott’s order will first face a 30-day suspension of its license to sell alcohol. Second offenses will result in a 60-day suspension, with third offenses leading to “stronger actions up to and including cancellation of the permit.”
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Music venues
The bar shutdown is also hurting Texas musicians and concert venues.
About 90% of National Independent Venue Association members report that they will close permanently in a few months without federal funding, according to an internal survey. Many bars have doubled as music venues and vice versa.
“I haven't had a paying gig since Feb. 11,” Austin drummer Mike Webb said. “Nobody I know has gotten any gigs.”
Some of his musician friends have moved on to other jobs. One is a janitor now. Another is working at a grocery store.
According to the Austin Chamber of Commerce, 83% of the city’s live music venues and 70% of the restaurant and bar owners reported in a survey that they had to lay off full-time employees.
“Most of those businesses indicated that if something doesn't give in the next few months, that they are at risk of closing their doors,” said Laura Huffman, CEO of the Austin chamber.
Polone said the economic effects of music venues ripple outward, funding musicians, agents, sound engineers, distribution companies, public relations firms and other businesses. The National Independent Venue Association estimates that for every dollar spent at music venues, $12 is generated in economic activity.
“If we lose,” he said, referring to venues being forced to close, “music, in my opinion, will never be the same. The local music business will never be the same.”
Lack of collaboration from Abbott
State Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, said closing bars, breweries and other businesses with high alcohol sales while restaurants are allowed open is unfair and impractical.
“You can go into a restaurant and you can drink, you could buy a $10 hamburger and fries and you could order three drinks,” Schaefer said. “You could sit there and have your drinks and eat your hamburger, without a mask. Tell me how that’s any different.”
He said there’s been a lack of collaboration among lawmakers with both Abbott and with the TABC.
Porter, from TABC, disagreed.
“From the beginning of this crisis, TABC has worked closely with stakeholders to assist struggling businesses and at the same time protect the health of Texans,” he said. “We’ve also worked directly with industry members and state lawmakers to find ways of assisting businesses.”
Schaefer said lawmakers will have to look at options in the upcoming legislative session, which begins in January, to find ways to offer relief to the food and beverage industry.
“We’ve got to find economic relief for this industry when you have livelihoods essentially being destroyed by government order,” Schaefer said, adding that it’ll be a challenge due to a constricted budget.
State Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, said she’s unsure that indoor dining of any kind is a good idea right now and believes that a lot of the COVID-19 cases that came on the heels of Texas’ phased reopening could be tied to restaurant and bar activity.
But Zwiener lamented that there has not been enough collaboration between Abbott and lawmakers. Abbott did not respond to requests for comment.
“I really wish Abbott would work more closely with legislators, but his, his circle seems to only get smaller,” she said. “Absolutely legislators are, by and large, not at the table, and that seems to be a bipartisan frustration.”
For Jackson, the general manager of Barbarella, the hardest thing to grapple with is that she has no idea what comes next. She’s running out of options while waiting for something to change.
“I have mentally in my head prepared myself to have to lose my house and probably move back home to Orlando with my mom at 40 years old,” she said. “It’s scary. I did what I was supposed to do. I went to college and worked my ass off at the same job, bought a house, and now it’s all being taken away for something that I didn’t do.”
Disclosure: The Austin Chamber of Commerce has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/21/texas-bars-shutdown/.
The Texas Tribune is proud to celebrate 10 years of exceptional journalism for an exceptional state. Explore the next 10 years with us.
Isolation of Nursing Homes During the Lockdown
Texas eased restrictions on visitation in long-term care facilities last week, but many families remain unsure if they will be allowed to visit. For those cut off from their loved ones for almost five months, isolation is becoming another very real threat.
By Sarah R. Champagne , August 14, 2020
After 70 years of marriage, the coronavirus tore Margie and Werner Stalbaum apart. But Margie, who was positive for COVID-19, wasn’t the one who died. It was Werner, of natural causes — and maybe of loneliness.
In early June, when 87-year-old Margie tested positive for the virus in the Cedar Park nursing home where they lived together, she was transferred to a different facility in nearby Round Rock to be isolated.
When their granddaughter Serena Bumpus visited Werner during that period, she talked to him through a window. Werner, who was 88 years old with dementia, would point at his wife’s empty bed, looking as if he didn’t know what was going on.
“Part of me wonders, and the rest of my family wonders, did he think she had already passed?” said Bumpus, who is a nurse. “And he just thought, ‘It’s time for me to go be with her.’”
The coronavirus pandemic has been a constant and precarious balancing act between limiting the spread of the virus and the need for life to go on. In few places has this balance been more delicate than in long-term care facilities, where elderly and medically fragile residents have been deprived of visits from loved ones for almost five months.
For some families, that wait is ending as the state rolls out new rules to allow visitation again in certain nursing homes and assisted living facilities, but it remains unclear how many facilities can — or will — start allowing visits. And some families say the damage to their loved ones from prolonged isolation has already been done.
As the pandemic reached the U.S. — and began ravaging nursing homes soon after — most states with coronavirus outbreaks closed visitation at long-term care facilities. Recently, some states have begun allowing visitors again as the COVID-19 curve flattened.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott shut down visitation in mid-March. That order remained in effect for 145 days until Aug. 6, when the state eased restrictions for facilities that don’t have any active COVID-19 cases among residents or confirmed cases among staff in the last two weeks.
Of Texas’ 1,215 nursing homes, 56% still had active cases on Thursday while more than 15% of the 2,000 assisted living facilities have reported active infections.
Once a facility determines it can allow visitors, the next step is to get approval from the state if it decides to resume visitation — and that’s up to each facility, Texas Health and Human Services spokesperson Kelli Weldon said in an email. Weldon added that the state doesn’t yet have a list of facilities that have been approved to resume visitation.
It’s up to families to contact the facilities to find out whether they are able to allow limited visitation. Even facilities that meet the requirements cannot allow physical contact between residents and visitors, state officials said.
Genny Lutzel holds a photograph of her mother, Paula Spangler, 80, outside her home in Rockwall on Aug. 06, 2020. Lutzel hasn't seen her mother, who lives in a nursing home and suffers from Alzheimer's, since March due to COVID-19.
Genny Lutzel stretches her hand as she describes her experience visiting her mother through a window outside of a nursing home, outside her home in Rockwall on Aug. 06, 2020. Lutzel hasn't seen her mother, who lives in a nursing home and suffers from Alzheimer's, since March due to COVID-19. Lutzel stopped visiting her mother through a window because, she says, "the experience for her (mom) is very confusing" due to the Alzheimer's.
Genny Lutzel covers her mouth as tears fill her eyes while holding a photograph of her mother, Paula Spangler, 80, outside her home in Rockwall on Aug. 06, 2020. Lutzel hasn't seen her mother, who lives in a nursing home and suffers from Alzheimer's, since March due to COVID-19.
For many families, this is not acceptable.
“My mom has Alzheimer’s, she is nonverbal," says Genny Lutzel, whose mother Paula is in an assisted living facility in Rockwall, near Dallas. "Everything in her world is sensory, sensory touch, sensory communication. And we can’t touch.”
COVID-19 has been so devastating in long-term care — with close to 22,000 infections and over 3,100 deaths in Texas since the beginning of the pandemic — that facilities are fearful of allowing any visitors and wary of putting more pressure on their staff, who will have to supervise every minute of the visits, said Jude Goodson, former executive director of Orchard Park at Southfork, an assisted living facility south of Houston.
Goodson said the pandemic has put facilities under tremendous financial pressure because of expenses like protective equipment for staff and technology to keep the residents in touch with their families. Meanwhile, revenues have dropped because of fewer new admissions and more deaths, she said.
“With severe financial issues, where is that extra staff [to manage visitations] going to come from?” Goodson said.
Roadblocks to visits
Abbott’s March order halting visitation didn’t halt the spread of COVID-19 among some of the state’s most at-risk residents. After the governor allowed businesses to gradually reopen in May and June, infections in nursing homes and assisted living facilities soared. In July, more than 11,000 of their residents were infected, and 1,350 died — more than four times the totals for June.
While families were banned from entering the facilities, infected staff members brought the virus to work with them, health experts say. Once inside a facility, it spreads “like a wildfire,” Phil Wilson, the acting executive commissioner for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, said during a webinar about the new visitation rules on Aug. 7.
The visitation rules are taking effect even as cases in nursing homes and assisted living centers are still growing, with deaths in long-term care facilities still making up for a third of the state’s overall toll. More than 1,100 new cases have been reported over the past week, a 54% drop compared to the last week of July — which saw some of the highest case numbers of the pandemic — but still more than double the weekly average for June.
Under the new rules, in addition to being COVID-free, nursing homes — the hardest hit facilities — will also have to test their staff every week, which has been difficult to achieve because of limited access to testing.
“Testing has been an ongoing challenge,” Kevin Warren, president and CEO of the Texas Health Care Association, which represents long-term care facilities, said last week after the new rules were published. Facilities can perform their own testing, using federal funds allocated for COVID-19, but without that federal money, Warren said it can cost facilities up to $15,000 a week to perform tests.
In July, the state tested all residents and staff in only about 7% of long-term care facilities, either through requests by the facilities or through quick response teams the state deployed after outbreaks were reported. In August, the state plans to test residents at 9% of nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
At the end of July, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services started sending devices to nursing homes that can perform antigen tests on-the-spot within minutes; 372 have been allocated so far at Texas’ more than 1,200 nursing homes. Antigen tests are taken by nasal or throat swab like other tests, and while faster, they generate more false negative results than other kind of test.
But the new requirement to test all staff weekly could be a Catch-22 for nursing homes: those with no active case aren’t prioritized to receive those testing devices.
“I don’t see how a nursing facility can test staff weekly without point-of-care testing [with the federally-supplied devices],” said Patty Ducayet, the state’s long-term care ombudsman, adding that she has no evidence that the state is fulfilling the remaining need.
Isolation kills too
Lutzel said she has been visiting her mom through a window since March.
“I know they’re doing everything they can, but there is just no substitute for a family member,” she said.
Scientists have long studied the effect of social interaction on the brain; the pandemic has offered a grim occasion to measure the consequences of the lack of interaction.
Isolation can lead to mental and physical decline, said Dr. Carmel Dyer, professor and executive director of the Consortium on Aging at UTHealth in Houston. Anxiety and depression increase with social isolation.
“One thing that our brains like the most is social interaction,” says Dr. Janice Knebl, professor in geriatrics at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth.
Both said several of their patients in long-term care have shown signs of declining health at a much faster pace than the normal course of aging or dementia.
Leora and Aretha Carter have also noticed the rapid decline of their mom, Willie Mae Carter, who is in Ridgecrest Retirement and Healthcare in Waco, during their weekly through-the-window visits.
“She had dementia but could still recognize us even if it took a minute. Now she won’t even get up out of a chair. I understand she’s 90 years old, but it occurred so quickly,” Leora Carter said.
She had a chance to do an outside visit with her mother in mid-May, but being six feet apart was hard, and the ritual hug to say goodbye was impossible.
Dyer said people with moderate to severe dementia are not always aware of the reasons why their loved ones can’t visit or hug them and might feel abandoned.
The new state rules allow for a “failure to thrive” exception to the visitation ban, which has to be documented and is only allowed at facilities that meet the other requirements.
Under the exception, if a physician diagnoses a decline in a resident’s physical or mental health, one person can be designated to be the sole visitor for that person, and not just in end-of-life situations as has been the case.
“Signs of a failure to thrive include weight loss, decreased appetite, poor nutrition, and inactivity,” reads the new emergency rules for nursing facilities.
For Renee Griggs, the fact that rules are different for different facilities creates “a lot of confusion.”
Her mother suffers from dementia and lives in an assisted living facility called The Grandview of Chisholm Trail in Fort Worth. When she talked to the facility on Friday, they didn’t know if they could or were going to allow visits.
Griggs said her mother has lost 16 pounds since January, and she’s gone from remembering her daughter to being disoriented and incontinent.
“Even though COVID itself is not killing my mom, the consequences of the disease are killing her,” she said.
She picked her mother up last week on Friday for an essential doctor’s appointment. She still has not driven her back to the facility. “I just couldn’t do that,” she said.
The Stalbaum family thinks Werner Stalbaum could be another victim of the virus who never contracted it. Werner and Margie Stalbaum in May 2020, about two months after Texas nursing homes were locked down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Margie Stalbaum was her husband’s “lifeline,” and putting her in quarantine took away the one person “who kept things familiar,” Bumpus said.
They had never been apart for so long, she added, and Werner’s health declined quickly after his wife was transferred.
Bumpus had a chance to visit her grandfather in his last hours, because of the exception to the visitation ban for compassionate end-of-life care. Bumpus said what she saw still haunts her; in 18 years of nursing, she said she had never seen such a “look of defeat on everyone’s face,” including residents and the staff.
That day, Margie Stalbaum was still waiting for a second test to come back negative so she could be reunited with her husband. She learned through a wrought iron fence, through masks and distance, that the love of her life was gone.
“She could hardly formulate a sentence” after she returned to the Cedar Park facility, Bumpus said, adding that she believes isolation caused her grandmother to become disoriented.
Only at Werner’s funeral did it become clear that Margie didn’t fully grasp what had happened.
“And so when she is rolled up to the casket to say goodbye, she looks at my aunt and says ‘Oh my god, he died,’” Bumpus said.
"The crushing isolation of nursing homes during the pandemic" was first published at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/14/texas-nursing-home-visitation-coronavirus-isolation/ by The Texas Tribune. The Texas Tribune is proud to celebrate 10 years of exceptional journalism for an exceptional state.
No Shutdown Coming For Texas
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said it will take weeks to see whether his recent mask order and decision to close bars are effective in slowing the virus' spread.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says "there is no shutdown coming" as coronavirus cases surge
"Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says "there is no shutdown coming" as coronavirus cases surge" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
As the number of new coronavirus cases in Texas continues to rise and hospitals grow more crowded, Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday there is no statewide shutdown looming.
Abbott said last week that if the spread of the virus didn't slow, "the next step would have to be a lockdown." But in a television interview Thursday, he said that there have been rumors of such a move and stressed that they were not true.
“Let me tell you, there is no shutdown coming,” he told KRIV-TV in Houston.
Abbott pointed to measures he’s taken in recent weeks, including a statewide mask mandate and an order shutting down bars, to slow the spread of the virus. It will take a few weeks to see a reversal in coronavirus case surges, he said.
He has repeatedly stressed this week that, if people wear masks, he'll be able to avoid shutting down the state. On Wednesday, he told KPRC-TV in Houston that it seems like people ask him about a shutdown "like a thousand times a day."
"People are panicking, thinking I'm about to shut down Texas again," he said. "The answer is no. That is not the goal. I've been abundantly clear."
As of Thursday, there were 10,457 people in Texas hospitals with the coronavirus. That was down slightly from a peak of 10,569 on Tuesday, but still an 8% increase from a week ago and more than four times the number a month ago. Abbott described seeing a "flattening" of hospitalizations. The state has reported 3,561 deaths from the virus.
“We are certainly not out of the woods yet, but this could be a glimmer of hope,” Abbott said of the recent hospitalization numbers. “But the only way we can avoid a shutdown is if we do get everybody buying into this process of wearing a face mask.”
Earlier Thursday, Abbott defended his coronavirus response at the Texas GOP convention after acknowledging widespread discontent among party members. Several Republican officials have voiced their criticism of Abbott’s statewide mask order.
"The last thing that any of us want is to lock Texas back down again," he said during the virtual convention.
But Democrats continued to push for Abbott to take more action to stem the spread of the virus.
"Governor Abbott should start listening to public health officials and members of his own coronavirus taskforce before he makes blanket claims," Abhi Rahman, a state party spokesperson, said in an email. "After experiencing record deaths today and over 10,000 new cases, it's shocking that Abbott continues to double down on his failed policies and positions."
Correction: The photo caption for this story originally misstated when Gov. Greg Abbott held a press conference on steps to reopen Texas businesses. The press conference was in April.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/16/texas-shutdown-greg-abbott/.
The Texas Tribune is proud to celebrate 10 years of exceptional journalism for an exceptional state. Explore the next 10 years with us.