MRT: Abbott: Reopenings Could ‘Ratchet Back’; HOU ICU Capacity at Risk; Positivity Rate Hits Warning Level; End of Straight Ticket Voting Upheld
Here's what you need to know.
MustReadTexas.com – @MustReadTexas
BY: @MattMackowiak
THURSDAY – 06/25/20
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TOP NEWS
"Gov. Abbott warns re-openings will have to ‘ratchet back’ if state can’t get on top of new spike in COVID-19,"The Houston Chronicle's Jeremy Wallace -- "The re-opening of Texas could be in jeopardy because of the dramatic spikes in COVID-19 hospitalizations and other key indicators plaguing the state’s fight against the virus, Gov. Greg Abbott warned on Wednesday.
“The numbers have completely spiked,” Abbott said in an interview on NBCDFW in Dallas.
On Wednesday, Texas reported record highs in total positive test and current lab-confirmed COVID-19 patients in hospitals. The state has 4,389 hospitalized COVID-19 patients around Texas - that is more than double what it had in hospitals on June 12. Since Memorial Day, hospitalizations in Texas have increased 190 percent.
“If we are unable to slow the spread over the next few weeks, then we will have to re-evaluate to the extent to which businesses are open," Abbott said. “Because if it's not contained in the next couple of weeks it will be completely out of control and Texas will have to ratchet back.”
Texas has been on an aggressive re-opening program since the start of May when Abbott first re-opened restaurants, retail stores, malls and movie theater to partial capacity. In late May, bars allowed to re-open to 25 percent capacity and restaurants allowed to move to 50 percent capacity. Earlier this month Abbott allowed most businesses to expand capacity further and last Friday allowed amusement parks and carnivals to re-open statewide." Houston Chronicle
"Houston ICU capacity could soon be exceeded as COVID-19 hospitalizations worsen, TMC projects,"The Houston Chronicle's Zach Despart -- "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.
The TMC system reported its intensive care units were at 98 percent capacity on Wednesday. Twenty-seven percent of that total were COVID patients, nearly double the 15 percent benchmark set by health experts.
There are two tiers of ICU surge capacity in the TMC system, said Dr. James McDeavitt, an executive vice president at the Baylor College of Medicine. There are 373 “sustainable surge” beds, which include general beds converted to intensive care by adding staff and equipment such as ventilators. This level of care can be provided indefinitely.
Should those beds fill, the system has an “unsustainable surge” capacity of 504 patients. This stage includes placing two beds in each room, converting non-residential areas to makeshift wards and decreasing staffing levels to treat more patients. This level of care can be maintained only for several weeks.
McDeavitt said he is confident in the near-term the system can manage the spike in COVID patients.
“We’re worried, but we don’t have a crisis today,” he said. “If this goes on for another three weeks, and the slope of the virus continues to be what it has been, then we’ll get to a point where we start to dip into that unsustainable surge capacity, and that’s a place nobody wants to go.”" Houston Chronicle
"Texans must quarantine for 14 days when traveling to NY, NJ, CT,"The Houston Chronicle's Taylor Goldenstein -- "Texans traveling to New York, New Jersey or Connecticut will now have to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival, marking a turning of the tables from when the Lone Star State did the same in late March at the start of the pandemic.
The move is the latest sign of Texas emerging as a hotspot for COVID-19 in the U.S. The state recorded a record number of new infections in one day Tuesday with more than 5,000, up from the previous high of 4,600 last Friday. New cases hit the 5,000 mark again on Wednesday.
“It doesn’t matter what region of the state of Texas that you’re in,” Gov. Greg Abbott told TV station KAUZ Wednesday. “People need to recognize that this is spreading, and as a result, people need to go back to those best practices to contain the spread.”
The East Coast states’ governors said the states subject to the advisory, which takes effect at midnight Wednesday, were chosen based on virus transmission rates of above 10 per 100,000 people or 10 percent of the population testing positive — both over a seven-day rolling average. The other states are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington and Utah." Houston Chronicle
George P. Bush guest column: "Time to empower Texas with real conservatism," via The Austin American-Statesman -- "When the recent audio tapes surfaced that showed top Empower Texans officials attacking Governor Greg Abbott in profane, obscene and offensive language, the group’s executive director, Michael Quinn Sullivan, publicly stated that he was shocked by these comments.
He shouldn’t be. For years, he and his organization have distorted the truth and attacked officeholders who don’t seek his approval. I know because I am one of them. And the comments that have been made about me have been just as extreme and untrue as what was heard on the audiotape. The only difference is they’ve been made publicly.
As the only statewide, non-judicial, elected official in Texas who has not received an endorsement or a contribution from Empower Texans, I am uniquely qualified to say: enough is enough. Enough of the lying. Enough of the crude comments made in public and in private about fellow Republicans.
It’s time for our Republican Party and our conservative movement in Texas to leave the Sullivan era and return to the Reagan era; an era where we focused on shared conservative convictions, united around a common agenda, and didn’t intentionally lie about the actions of fellow Republican officeholders.
As we approach the November elections, we are facing challenges too great for us to be petty. We face a health system still under siege from COVID-19, the most difficult budget session since the Great Texas Banking Crisis and a party that has lost ground in the Texas suburbs." Austin American-Statesman
"DA: Walmart mass shooting suspect will face new charges," via AP-- "The man accused of killing 22 people and wounding two dozen more at a Walmart in Texas is expected to be reindicted Thursday as he faces another murder charge in the mass shooting that targeted Mexicans, prosecutors said.
Patrick Crusius of Allen, Texas, is currently being held without bond on one count of capital murder of multiple people under Texas state law. The 21-year-old has also been charged with several federal hate crimes related to the shooting, according to a 90-count indictment unsealed in February.
District Attorney Jaime Esparza said the latest murder charge will account for 36-year-old Guillermo “Memo” Garcia, who died nine months after the Aug. 3 massacre in the Texas border of El Paso that’s considered one of the deadliest attacks on Latinos in recent U.S. history. Esparza said Crusius will also face more counts in relation to the dozens of people injured in the shooting. The new charges will be added to the indictment prior to the grand jury’s term ending on June 30, Esparza said.
“We’re reindicting the defendant to include the additional death and to include all of those injured in the Walmart shooting in order to give the next DA all of their options,” Esparza added. “We just want to cover all our bases.”
The upcoming reindictment comes more than 10 months after the mass shooting in the majority Latino and Hispanic city federal prosecutors say was sparked by militant racism. They have said Crusius carried out the attack to scare Latinos into leaving the U.S., a plot they allege he outlined in a racist screed published online before the attack.
More than 20 people survived the shooting and suffered from injuries. Some underwent surgery, and one remains in the hospital. Hundreds more have suffered psychological trauma either because they were present or because a loved one was wounded, according to local officials.
Esparza, who’s set to retire after 28 years in office, said he hopes that the added charges will help provide continuity in the case and eventually lead to justice should the DA succeeding him decide to pursue the state case against Crusius.
Voters will pick a new DA in a runoff election on July 14th. It’s one of several factors that will help answer some legal and financial questions, including the trial’s start date and location.
The Department of Justice will prosecute on a parallel track with Texas officials. Crusius already faces the death penalty on a state capital murder charge to which he pleaded not guilty last year." AP
STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
"Texas’ coronavirus positivity rate exceeds “warning flag” level Abbott set as businesses reopened,"The Texas Tribune's Sarah Champagne and Shannon Najambadi -- "Seven weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott began allowing businesses to reopen, Texas exceeded another one of the his key metrics Wednesday when the seven-day average positivity rate passed 10%, a level that Abbott previously called a “warning flag.”
The positivity rate is the ratio of positive cases to the number of tests conducted. The seven-day average has returned to 10.42%, a level the state hasn’t seen since mid-April, when Texas was under a stay-at-home order. In other words, for the past week, an average of about 1 out of 10 people tested for the coronavirus were positive.
It’s the latest in a streak of rapidly increasing indicators that have worried public health experts and local officials in Texas.
“The outlook is not good,” said Rebecca Fischer, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health. “We are in a super dire situation.”
For 13 days in a row, the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has reached record highs, soaring to 4,389 on Wednesday and more than doubling since the beginning of June. The daily count of new COVID-19 cases passed the 5,000 mark Tuesday and reached 5,551 on Wednesday — a 94% jump since June 1." Texas Tribune
"Texans struggle to find work in the Rio Grande Valley, where unemployment has nearly tripled,"The Texas Tribune's Meena Venkatarmanan -- "More than 2.53 million Texans have filed for unemployment since mid-March — amounting to four typical years’ worth of unemployment claims. And in the Rio Grande Valley, the lack of jobs is even more pronounced. The region’s unemployment rate in May was 17.1%, well above the statewide rate of 13%.
In February, before the pandemic gripped Texas, the Rio Grande Valley's unemployment rate was 6.5%. The increase since shows how hard the Valley has been hit by the economic collapse caused by the coronavirus pandemic and limits on the U.S.-Mexico border crossings that fuel its retail industry. Even the slowdown in the oil and gas sector has affected employees who live in the Valley and work in that industry.
On Monday, city commissioners in McAllen, another Rio Grande Valley city, amended the city budget to cover a $3.3 million shortfall caused by COVID-19 relief programs for residents and small-business owners, according to The Monitor.
Salvador Contreras, a professor of border economics at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, said that in Texas, Black and Hispanic workers saw larger declines in employment than white employees. So did women and young workers with low education and income levels, according to a study he published. Nationally, the unemployment rate for Hispanic and/or Latino individuals was 17.6% in May — more than 4 percentage points higher than the overall U.S. rate of 13.3%, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics." Texas Tribune
"Texas judge: Irate man smacked his hand over facemask appeal," via AP-- "A prominent Texas official says an irate man smacked his hand when he tried to persuade the man to don a face covering Wednesday.
The man was berating a cashier at a Lowe’s home improvement store for requiring him to wear a mask, when Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff intervened, a Wolff spokeswoman said.
Wolff, who had ordered businesses to require face coverings to slow the spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus or face $1,000 fines per violation. He was explaining the order to the man when he turned his ire on Wolff, who phoned Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar so he could hear the exchange.
“It was one-sided, certainly,” Salazar said, adding that the man “was just berating the judge. Language that you wouldn’t want anyone, you certainly wouldn’t want your wife or your children hearing that kind of language in broad daylight, not in a retail establishment. ... He was certainly berating the judge and what he thought of the law.”
Wolff offered the man his business card and asked him to call, Salazar said. The man smacked the card out of Wolff’s hand and left. Wolff followed him outside, got his license plate number and turned it over to Salazar.
“Well, we’ll see what he thinks of the assault charge he’s going to catch,” Salazar said." AP
2020
"Judge cites pandemic in rejecting lawsuit over Texas straight ticket voting sector,"The Houston Chronicle's James Osbourne -- "Saying that voting is “wrought with uncertainty” this year regardless because of the coronavirus pandemic, a federal judge Wednesday allowed Texas to proceed with banning straight-ticket voting this November, dismissing a lawsuit brought by Democrats.
Most states don’t offer straight-ticket voting, which allows voters to simply choose a party’s entire slate of candidates at a stroke.
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law in 2017 to scrap straight-ticket voting starting this fall. But in March, on the heels of long lines snaking outside Texas polling stations during the Super Tuesday primaries, Democrats argued that forcing voters to individually select every race would create even longer wait times.
That would disproportionately impact Black and Latino community in big urban counties, the Texas Democratic Party argued, because ballots are already longer in those places.
U.S. District Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo ruled that Democrats lacked standing to bring the suit but said that, regardless, “many Texans will endure longer lines at polling-places indefinitely” this year because of the pandemic.
“All things considered, in-person voting at polling-places is wrought with uncertainty,” Garcia Marmolejo wrote.
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the lawsuit was based on hypotheticals and cheered the decision." AP
REMAINDERS
TEXAS RANGERS: "Texas Rangers have all 5 picks signed 2 weeks after draft" AP
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