Salons, barber shops to reopen early

RESTRICTIONS LIFTED: Critics decry Abbott’s plan for Friday start without supported data

Gov. Greg Abbott will allow barber shops and beauty salons to partially reopen Friday, and more businesses soon thereafter, as the state continues to ramp up

COVID-19 testing and the percentage of Texans testing positive for the disease declines.

The governor said Tuesday that the outbreak has slowed to a manageable level, even as he warned that new infections and hospitalizations are likely to increase as restrictions are lifted. He encouraged people to continue wearing masks and maintaining physical distance from one another.

“If you look at where we are now, if you look at how we’ve been able to manage infections, then we shouldn’t have any problems,” he said.

Abbott said gyms and nonessential manufacturing will be able to partially reopen May 18, as the second phase of his reopening plan begins. He laid out several guidelines for the reopenings, including one-on-one appointments at salons, and gloves and constant disinfecting at gyms.

School graduation and promotion ceremonies will be allowed in some cases, such as outdoor events with proper distancing between families and events in which attendants stay in vehicles. A decision is still pending on when and how public schools will reopen, but education officials are looking at mid-August.

Public swimming pools can open at reduced capacity. Bars are still closed as safety strategies are worked out.

The announcements came

less than a week after the governor lifted his statewide stay-athome order as well as some restrictions on businesses. He has barred local officials from enforcing stricter measures such as mandating masks in public, as several cities had.

Some fellow Republicans, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, had been pressing Abbott for weeks to issue a wider reopening, saying early projections for the outbreak were overblown.

Many parts of the state are still struggling to contain infections, and last week the state reported its highest weekly increase in new cases and deaths since the pandemic began.

Democrats quickly accused the governor of reneging on an initial plan to wait for data before moving forward with more reopenings. At a press briefing last week, Abbott said he wanted to “see two weeks of data to confirm no flare up of COVID-19” before allowing more businesses to open, and those already open to expand the number of customers allowed inside at one time.

“Gov. Abbott said that he would reevaluate opening Texas up but after four straight days with over 1,000 new cases and some of the highest death totals since the crisis began, Abbott decided to throw data and science out the window and continue to fight for his lobbyists and billionaire donors,” Texas Democratic Party Executive Director Manny Garcia said in a statement.

Some health officials have warned of the potential for new outbreaks as Texas and other states continue reopening. A closely watched projection nearly tripled its death estimates for Texas this week, citing the moves to lift restrictions.

Abbott largely dismissed those estimates Tuesday, pointing instead to the percentage of people who have tested positive, which continues to fall. He said he expects case totals to rise as identification of the outbreak becomes stronger across the state, but said there are plenty medical resources to respond.

“We’re going to be testing a lot more people,” Abbott said. “A lot more people are going to test positive. There could very well be the need for more people to need hospitalization. What matters is not how many people are hospitalized. What matters is what our hospitalization capacity is.”

He added: “We haven’t even begun to tap into our hospital capacity.”

About 1,900 people were hospitalized for the virus as of Tuesday, with over 25,000 general and intensive care beds still available. Abbott said availability will likely fall as non-essential medical procedures — which had been on hold for the month of April — pick up again.

The rate of people who test positive is a helpful measure to track outbreaks like COVID-19, though it has limitations, especially as testing is still increasing, according to some health experts.

The state is averaging about 18,000 tests per day, a sharp increase from previous weeks but still short of a near-term goal of 30,000.

The governor did not provide updates Tuesday on how many people the state has hired to track down contacts of those infected, a process known as contact tracing. He said last week that nearly 3,000 more tracers would be brought on by the end of May.

On Tuesday he announced he was creating “surge response” teams to help contain outbreaks in hotspots as they emerge. The teams will work with local officials to make sure they have enough protective gear and testing in place.

The state has already mobilized more than 3,000 members of the Texas National Guard to help manufacture protective gear and set up roving test sites.