Isolation ordered for some travelers

Abbott’s decision to affect flyers from 3 states, New Orleans

Anyone flying into Texas from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or the city of New Orleans will be subject to a mandatory selfquarantine for 14 days or the duration of their stay, per a new executive order Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The order is in line with new federal guidelines, Abbott said, and will be enforced by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Violators will be subject to a $1,000 fine or 180 days in jail or both. It applies only to those traveling by air, not by road.

“This is intended simply to achieve the goals that have been articulated by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and by the White House organization focused on reducing the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S.,” Abbott said.

Other states could be added in the future — potentially California and Washington, he said.

Speaking from the Texas Capitol, Abbott said Texas is “on a very good trajectory” in terms of its testing for the coronavirus even though the state is well behind others.

As of Thursday, 1,424 Texans had tested positive for COVID-19, up from 97 last Friday, and 18 have

died from the disease, compared with five Friday. About 100 patients are hospitalized in Texas for COVID-19, Abbott said.

But as of Thursday morning, Texas has tested only about 21,000 people since the outbreak began. California has tested more than 66,000, Florida over 27,000 and New York over 120,000.

“We are administering every test that we get,” Abbott said when asked why Texas is testing less per capita.

Abbott said the state is relying on the federal government for testing supplies and that it has prioritized states with more fatalities.

“The federal government has triaged this in a way that prioritizes New York for obvious reasons; California and Washington for obvious reasons,” he said.

New York has had more than 385 deaths. Washington has had more than 132, and California has had 65. Texas had reported 18 deaths as of Thursday.

There is good news in some of the testing in Texas so far, Abbott said.

“Less than 10 percent of the people who test positive need to be in a hospital as of this time,” Abbott said. “Our goal in this whole testing process is to test as many people as possible, to see those numbers grow and then to see a leveling off of the increase of those numbers in Texas.”

Abbott said one of his top priorities has been assessing the capacity of Texas hospitals as they anticipate an influx of COVID-19 patients.

He said that as he has instituted executive orders over the last week, such as postponing elective surgeries and waiving certain facility licensing requirements allowing recently closed hospitals to come back online, more than 3,000 beds have become available in Texas.

“Our job is not to deal with the situation where we are but to be constantly looking forward to the worst-case scenario of where we may be,” Abbott said. “We don’t want to be in a situation like what New York is in right now.”

Abbott said that as for ventilators, the state is trying to get a good tally of how many it can access and how many could be needed when the virus hits its peak in Texas.

“Some early information shows that we have some supplies to make sure that we will be able to respond to the immediate need,” he said without detailing how many the state could need or how many are available.

New York officials have complained that they will be nearly 30,000 ventilators short when the number of COVID-19 patients peaks over the next three weeks.

Abbott held his briefing Thursday shortly after President Donald

Trump sent a letter to governors saying he is preparing to issue new, potentially more relaxed social distancing guidelines. Trump has also said publicly that he wants to start lifting restrictions by Easter.

Asked about Trump’s push, Abbott acknowledged that a lot of people want to get back to normal living after being confined. But he made clear the decision to lower the restrictions in Texas will be based on medical advice.

“Everyone understands we will all be working off of the best advice from medical professionals,” Abbott said. “We wouldn’t want to suddenly open schools or businesses only to have to shut them down again.”