New COVID-19 cases continue to decline
As Gov. Greg Abbott announced the imminent lifting of coronavirus restrictions, hospitalizations from COVID-19 continued to decline in the San Antonio region.
For the fourth day in a row, officials reported no new deaths from COVID-19. Bexar County’s confirmed death toll from the virus now stands at 2,670.
Health officials reported 249 new coronavirus cases Tuesday, compared with 288 on Monday. The sevenday average of new cases, a metric that evens out dayto-day fluctuations in case counts, was 373, up from 204 a week earlier.
The number of COVID-19 patients in San Antonio hospitals has fallen significantly in the past month after reaching an all-time high of 1,520 in January.
As of Tuesday, Bexar County hospitals held 418 coronavirus patients — compared with 1,176 on Feb. 2. Of those, 47 were admitted within the last 24 hours.
The number in intensive care dropped to 158 Tuesday — that’s fifty fewer than a week ago.
For the first time since November, the number of patients on ventilators fell below 100. Officials reported 90 patients were on ventilators Tuesday.
Abbott said Tuesday he would lift the state’s mask mandate and drop the state’s occupancy limits for restaurants, bars, sporting events, retailers and wher
ever people gather. Both will be rolled back March 10. The governor cited falling hospitalizations from COVID-19 across the state, as well as an increase in vaccinations.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff criticized the move as premature and said it would lead to more infections and hospitalizations.
The two urged residents to keep wearing masks — and urged businesses to continue to require customers to wear face coverings while on their premises.
“The best tool we’ve had in the fight against this pandemic is our care for one another,” Nirenberg said at the daily city-county coronavirus briefing. “So please continue to do your part.”
Abbott’s lifting of the statewide mask ban comes at a dangerous time, local officials said.
More contagious strains of the coronavirus abound, making it more likely that people who don’t wear masks will contract and spread the disease.
Spring break is on the doorstep — when college students tend to party in large groups and drink alcohol. Wolff said that case counts have been particularly high among people in their twenties.
“With everybody gathering like that, you just now it’s going to spread,” Wolff said.
Abbott left some leeway for local officials to enact their own restrictions should the pandemic worsen.
County judges can impose mask mandates and occupancy limits if COVID-19 patients make up more than 15 percent of all local hospitalizations.
As of Tuesday, the figure in Bexar was 8.3 percent.
But the authority Abbott granted to locals is sharply circumscribed. County officials can’t limit occupancy to less than 50 percent.
In addition, the governor left no way for local authorities to enforce such measures with fines or jail terms. That renders local restrictions effectively “meaningless,” Wolff said.
Lawyers for cities and counties from El Paso to Houston are poring over Abbott’s order, looking for potential loopholes, said Larry Roberson, chief of the Bexar County district attorney’s civil division.
City Attorney Andy Segovia joked that the governor’s orders “shouldn’t be a Sudoku puzzle in terms of trying to figure out what we can and can’t do.”
Officials still plan to require masks inside city and county buildings. San Antonio International Airport falls under a federal requirement for masks in transportation hubs, Nirenberg said.
The county can’t impose restrictions on Spurs games held at the AT&T Center, Wolff said.
But the Spurs organization said in a statement that it still intended to limit attendance to 3,200 people and to require masks at the team’s events.
The governor’s orders “shouldn’t be a Sudoku puzzle in terms of trying to figure out what we can and can’t do.”
Andy Segovia, city attorney