MRT: New High in Virus Deaths; Spreads in TX Nursing Homes; 650k+ in TX Lose Health Insurance; Scramble to Provide Guidelines for School Reopening
Here's What You Need to Know in Texas Today.
MustReadTexas.com – @MustReadTexas
BY: @MattMackowiak
THURSDAY – 07/16/20
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TOP NEWS
"Virus deaths hit new high in Texas as governor urges masks," AP's Paul J. Weber and Juan A. Lozano -- "Signs in the Texas Panhandle urged voters to wear masks. Polling precincts were already staffed thin because some election workers backed out of the state’s primary runoffs, cautious about the coronavirus that socked the rural meatpacking region in May.
By and large, most voters covered their faces, even though Texas’ mask mandate exempts polling locations. Others adamantly made clear they wouldn’t.
“It’s kind of along the same lines you see in other parts of Texas — there is a faction they’re not going to wear a mask unless absolutely required,” said Melynn Huntley, Potter County’s elections administrator. “And even then, they’re going to try not to.”
Two weeks after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ordered most of the state’s 30 million residents to wear masks, Texas is still scrambling to contain one of the biggest coronavirus surges in the U.S., and Abbott is stressing that the widespread use of face coverings could avoid another lockdown —- one he hasn’t ruled out. On Wednesday, Texas again set a new high with nearly 10,800 new cases, along with a record 110 deaths.
The rising toll includes 35 deaths that officials on the Texas-Mexico border said happened Wednesday morning alone in Hidalgo County. That was more than twice the number of new deaths reported in Harris County — which has five times the population — and where Texas’ largest school district decided that Houston public schools would not only postpone the first day of class but conduct the first six weeks of learning online.
“For those people who think this virus is a joke, that it’s made up, not real, that it’s not having an impact, I want you to take a look at that chart,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said, waving to a graphic listing biographical details about the new deaths.
Although it remains too early to tell the impact since Texas’ mask order was announced before the Fourth of July weekend, other former holdouts to requiring face coverings continued relenting Wednesday. Republican Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama announced a statewide mask order just a few weeks after saying enforcing one would be “next to impossible.”
Walmart also said it will require customers to wear face coverings at all of its namesake and Sam’s Club stores, and the company’s clout as the largest retailer in the U.S. is expected to push others to issue similar mandates.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been consistent about recommending people cover their mouth and nose when around others to help reduce the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. But mask mandates have been highly politicized by President Donald Trump and many of his ardent supporters. Some Texas sheriffs have said they won’t enforce Abbott’s orders.
Others in Texas lament that residents still don’t know the rules. On the border, Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño relayed with exasperation how he watched a video on social media of a family celebrating a birthday and priding themselves on social distancing, but saying they didn’t need to wear masks because they were all relatives.
“Therein lies the problem,” he said.
But he and other local officials in Texas say a mask mandate is not enough given Texas’ trajectory and have called on Abbott to restore their powers to shut down local businesses. On Wednesday, officials in the Rio Grande Valley learned that a Christian relief charity that set up a field hospital in New York during the early days of the pandemic would not be putting one up on the border, even after the organization headed by the Rev. Franklin Graham toured the area this week.
“I think we need to shut it down for two weeks, take control of the situation,” Hidalgo County Judge Richard Corteztold The Monitor newspaper in McAllen. “Yes there’s going to be financial consequences and other consequences to it, but how can you let this go?”
Abbott has pushed back.
“If we were to shut down for two weeks, as some people are asking, once we open back up you would then see things begin to spread again,” Abbott told Houston television station KTRK on Wednesday. “Until there are medications to slow the spread of the coronavirus, there is only one thing that can slow the spread and that is by people adopting the use of wearing a face guard of some sort whenever they go out.”" AP
"Coronavirus is rapidly spreading in Texas nursing homes, state figures show,"NBC News'Suzy Khimm -- "Younger Americans have been driving the recent coronavirus surge in Texas — but the virus is now also rapidly spreading in the state’s nursing homes, threatening elderly, frail residents who are most at risk of serious illness and death.
Across Texas, nearly 1,000 new infections of nursing home residents were reported in the week ending last Friday, July 10, NBC News found in an analysis of data from the Texas health department. That’s the highest weekly increase since mid-May, when the state began publishing the data, and it reflects record increases last week in the Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and El Paso regions.
And that is most likely an undercount. Since last Friday, the state has reported more than 1,800 new cases among nursing home residents, in part because a data lag had prevented cases from being counted in the San Antonio area and the southernmost part of the state over the past two weeks, health officials said.
Deaths from the virus are also mounting: 1,173 nursing home residents have died in Texas so far, according to state data — including 224 deaths since July 1." NBC News
"More than 650k Texans lost health insurance during the pandemic," The Houston Chronicle's Gwendolyn Wu -- "An estimated 659,000 adults in Texas lost health care coverage with their jobs between February and May as employers laid off workers in droves, according to new reports.
The uninsured rate in the state surged to 29 percent, meaning nearly one in three Texans under 65 are without health insurance, the highest rate in the nation, according to an analysis released Tuesday from Families USA, a consumer health advocacy nonprofit. Texas already boasted the highest rate of uninsured residents before COVID-19, with approximately 18 percent of adults uninsured.
Across the United States, 5.4 million workers lost their health insurance during the pandemic, bringing the uninsured rate to about 16 percent, according to the Families USA study. It will likely be the biggest increase in uninsured over a one-year period ever recorded, already exceeding the 3.9 million who lost employer-sponsored coverage from 2008 to 2009, in the thick of the Great Recession.
Before this recession is over, more than 10 million Americans could also lose health insurance as job losses mount, according to an analysis from the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank, Early models show that about one-third of the 10 million people will qualify for a spouse or other family member’s health insurance plan and another 2.8 million — just over a quarter — will enroll in Medicaid, the federal insurance program for the poor.
About half of Texas residents rely on job-based health insurance, said Stacey Pogue, a senior policy analyst for Every Texan, an Austin health policy think tank. New claims for unemployment benefits in Texas have crept up again in Texas, with roughly 117,000 people applying for benefits during the first week of July.
“They all had the rug pulled out from under them due to job loss and had to scramble to see if they could get other coverage,” Pogue said.
The Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that 1.6 million Texans could have become uninsured between March and May, including children and other dependents covered by an adult’s health insurance plan. But those estimated did not account for adults and families who may have enrolled in Medicaid or COBRA, which allows employees to stay on an employer-sponsored health plan for 18 months.
The numbers from the Families USA study account for people who have already found replacement insurance plans.
Texas legislators have not expanded Medicaid to cover a wider swath of the low-income population, meaning very few will qualify for safety-net coverage. Proposed state budget cuts could also reduce the scope of subsidized health insurance." Houston Chronicle
"4 charged in Texas with plotting to kill DEA agent," via AP-- "Four people have been charged in Texas with plotting to have a Drug Enforcement Administration agent killed, prosecutors said.
Federal prosecutors in Dallas announced Wednesday that a grand jury returned an indictment against Manuel Garcia Gomez, 22; Jorge Humberto Velazco Larios, 27; Eva Denisse GomezGarcia, 38; and Alicia Yuritzi Juarez Martinez, 31. Each is charged with conspiring to use interstate commerce to commit murder-for-hire.
Gomez and Larios were arrested, while Garcia and Martinez are believed to be fugitives in Mexico, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox’s office.
Court records show both Gomez and Larios entered not-guilty pleas on Wednesday.
The indictment says Gomez was jailed in Johnson County on a methamphetamine charge when he offered $20,000 — $5,000 upfront and $15,000 upon completion — to have the agent assigned to his case killed.
The indictment alleges Gomez called his girlfriend, Martinez, and his sister, Garcia, to arrange for the delivery of the money. He told them that Larios, the co-defendant in his drug case, was contributing to the payment, prosecutors said
Prosecutors said an unindicted co-conspirator made a $3,000 “down payment” on June 11 for the killing and later paid $2,000.
The unidentified agent was not harmed." AP
STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
"Texas officials scramble to provide school reopening guidelines with only weeks of summer left,"The Texas Tribune's Aliyya Swaby -- "Weeks before summer break is set to end for millions of Texas public school students, the state still doesn’t have final rules on how schools should reopen this fall, and the picture grew only slightly less murky Wednesday.
Schools in Houston, the state's largest district, announced they will start the fall semester later than usual and expect students to spend at least six weeks learning virtually before possibly bringing some back into classrooms. The state made clear that it won't financially penalize districts that don't open for in-person classes within three weeks of starting their school year if a local public health agency orders classrooms to remain closed.
And amid the evolving reopening turmoil, several hundred teachers protested outside the state Capitol on Wednesday, demanding that their safety be taken into account.
Last week, the state's education agency said all schools must offer in-person instruction for all students who want it this fall, allowing districts a transition period of just three weeks at the start of the year to hold classes virtually and get safety plans in place. It didn’t take long for them to rethink the initial approach, as COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to surge across the state." Texas Tribune
"Sheriff: Fired Texas jail deputy allowed attack on inmate," via AP-- "A Bexar County Jail deputy stood by while six inmates brutally beat another in a shower and then waited 30 minutes for the assailants to clean up while the victim laid bleeding before he called for help, authorities said in announcing that the deputy had been charged and fired from his job.
Jean Camacho-Morales, 33, was arrested on Tuesday, which was a day after the attack, The San Antonio Express-News reported. He faces counts of official oppression, tampering with government records and aggravated assault with substantial bodily harm — the last count because Texas law requires all parties involved in a crime to be charged with the offense. His bail was set at $25,000.
“Though he didn’t lift a finger in assault, he also didn’t lift a finger to help or do his job,” Sheriff Javier Salazar said in announcing the charges.
Camacho-Morales said he immediately called for assistance when he found the 44-year-old victim brutally beaten in the shower, but surveillance footage showed otherwise, Salazar said. Camacho-Morales had prior knowledge of the attack and stood by as the victim was beaten by at least six other inmates. He then left the man “to lay in a pool of his own blood for 30 minutes while the other inmates had time to clean up and destroy evidence,” the sheriff said.
Camacho-Morales allegedly turned off the lights in the shower unit in an attempt to conceal the crime from the jail’s cameras, Salazar said.
The victim was rushed to the hospital, unable to breathe on his own. He had several facial fractures and damaged vertebrae.
The sheriff’s office’s public integrity unit, internal affairs department and the FBI are investigating the attack. There is no indication that it was gang-related or how Camacho-Morales was connected to the inmates involved, Salazar said.
One inmate, Justin Rodriguez, has been charged in the beating. He was already facing murder and other charges." AP
2020
"Nearly 1 million people voted in Tuesday’s Democratic runoff. The party says it’s a sign of strength to come in November,"The Texas Tribune's Matthew Watkins -- "Voter turnout under 6% may not seem like an achievement for democracy, but it made Texas Democrats optimistic Wednesday as they look to break Republicans' statewide dominance this fall.
A total of 955,735 people — 5.8% of registered voters — cast ballots in Tuesday’s Democratic runoffs. That is more than double the amount of votes cast in the 2018 Democratic runoffs, when a race for governor was at the top of the ticket instead of a race for a U.S. Senate seat.
Party leaders said it was the highest raw number of votes cast in any Democratic primary runoff in Texas history. That’s in large part due to the growing electorate, however. Turnout for the 1994 Democratic runoffs, featuring a U.S. Senate race between Dallas millionaire Richard Fisher and former Attorney General Jim Mattox, was 8.3%, though the number of votes was 746,641.
Gilberto Hinojosa, chair of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a statement that the turnout “showed that Texas Democrats are fired up and are ready for change.”
“Texas is the biggest battleground state in the country,” he said. “There is unprecedented energy across our great state, and Texas Democrats are putting in the hard work to turn Texas blue in November. This is our moment.”" Texas Tribune
"Texas Senate race is on: John Cornyn slams MJ Hegar as ‘liberal’; she calls him ‘spineless bootlicker’,"The Dallas Morning News' Robert Garrett and Gromer Jeffers Jr. -- "MJ Hegar finally has what she’s spent more than a year aiming for — a chance to unseat Texas Sen. John Cornyn.
As Hegar savored her runoff win Wednesday, she vowed to meet with vanquished fellow Democrat Royce West and heal their party’s rifts.
Hegar, who eked out a 4-point victory over the lightly funded West, denied that the protracted nomination battle was draining and a setback.
“It’s not,” she said. “We still have a million dollars cash on hand, and, you know, we’re going to continue the grassroots energy and exponential momentum that has brought us this far. We’re already seeing quite a big uptick in support.”
Hegar’s campaign offered as evidence the $100,000 she raised Wednesday.
Still, political prognosticator Jessica Taylor of the Cook Political Report noted that by this time two years ago, Democratic Senate hopeful Beto O’Rourke had banked tens of millions and stoked a “massive, grassroots upswell” that propelled him to within 3 points of Sen. Ted Cruz.
“There’s a chance that she could get somewhat of a windfall after this” primary win, Taylor said of Hegar." Dallas Morning News
"Cornyn challenger equates U.S> border policies to Chinese concentration camps,"The Washington Free Beacon's Collin Anderson -- "Texas Democratic Senate nominee M.J. Hegar repeatedly equated U.S. immigration policies to Uyghur concentration camps in China, saying Americans "cannot lecture China" on human rights issues.
During a June 24 call with supporters, Hegar accused the Trump administration of "terrorizing people," calling its attempts to deter illegal immigration a "human rights violation."
"When we are committing human rights violations on our southern border, not only is it immoral, but it's also impacting our ability to have influence globally," Hegar said. "We cannot lecture China on their treatment of the Uyghurs. … We cannot start looking like the countries and the governments that we are supposed to be the opposite of."
Hegar's June comments came just two weeks before the Treasury Department announced sanctions against four Chinese Communist Party officials for human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims. They also came as the establishment-backed candidate faced a closer than expected run-off race against state legislator Royce West. Hegar won the nomination on Tuesday by 4 points despite spending more than three times as much as her progressive opponent.
Hegar, an Air Force veteran, has made foreign policy the focus of her campaign against Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas). She has repeatedly attacked the Trump administration for its tough stance against the Chinese regime. During campaign events in February and April, she argued that the United States has lost its "moral high ground" to China by "putting kids in cages on our southern border," a reference to the enclosures built by the Obama administration to temporarily house migrants. According to Hegar, the enclosures are equivalent to Chinese concentration camps where Uyghur Muslims are detained and forced to work in brutal conditions.
China ranks among the world's worst offenders of state-sanctioned human trafficking. Detainees have reported torture, rape, and other obscene abuses in the camps, and women are reportedly subjected to involuntary sterilization. In June, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took aim at the regime's human rights abuses against the Uyghurs.
"The United States will not stand idly by as the CCP carries out human rights abuses targeting Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang," Pompeo said. He went on to accuse China of "forced labor, arbitrary mass detention and forced population control, and attempts to erase [Uyghur] culture and Muslim faith."
Hegar, who did not respond to a request for comment, will face incumbent senator Cornyn in November following her narrow primary runoff win on Tuesday. She received the endorsement of the Schumer-led Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in December 2019, using the national support to secure a sizable fundraising advantage. Hegar spent more than $5.6 million on the primary, compared with opponent Royce West's $1.6 million, and benefited from millions in outside spending by Democratic establishment groups. Liberal dark money group VoteVets spent more than $3.5 million on ads backing Hegar, and abortion giant EMILY's List spent at least $1.3 million, including an $850,000 ad buy placed just a week before the primary.
Hegar defeated West by just 4 points on Tuesday. National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Joanna Rodriguez pointed to the slim margin of victory to criticize the Texas Democrat for relying on national groups to "push her over the finish line."" Washington Free Beacon
"Oil-and-gas money flows to Railroad Commission nominee who pledged to recuse himself,"The Austin American-Statesman's Asher Price -- "Back in March, when James “Jim” Wright, with little money in his campaign account, remained an obscure Republican primary challenger to a sitting state oil-and-gas regulator, he pledged to recuse himself from matters involving campaign contributors.
But campaign finance reports filed this week show that after Wright’s out-of-nowhere upset primary victory in March, hundreds of thousands of dollars from oil and gas interests flowed his way.
In an interview Wednesday, Wright qualified his earlier pledge, telling the American-Statesman that should he be elected in November to the Railroad Commission, the state agency that regulates the oil-and-gas industry, he would recuse himself only on matters that involved contributors who give money directly ahead of a commission vote.
Environmentalists and watchdog groups have long referred to the Railroad Commission as a “captured agency” — its three elected commissioners, all Republicans, receive the bulk of their campaign contributions from the industry they regulate, and have historically been sympathetic to its interests." Austin American-Statesman
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