Abbott offers grim outlook on virus deaths

AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott is warning of even “greater fatalities” from COVID-19 as the number of people in hospitals with lab-confirmed cases hit a record 8,698 on Monday.

During a television interview in Dallas, Abbott agreed that at one point, even as new coronavirus infections were rising, the state’s deaths were decreasing — which could have been seen as good news. But, he said, heading into the Fourth of July weekend, Texas had its deadliest four-day stretch since the pandemic started, and he warned of things to come.

“My concern is that we may see greater fatalities going forward as we go into the middle part of July,” Abbott said.

Over the last seven days, Texas has averaged 36 coronavirus deaths per day. That is up from a week ago, when the state averaged 30 people dying per day from the disease.

Abbott said in the interview on FOX4 in Dallas that many of the people dying now likely contracted the disease back in late May.

So far, Texas has reported 2,655 deaths. New York has reported 24,913 and California has reported 6,337.

In another Monday evening interview on Beaumont’s KFDM, Abbott blasted local government leaders who have called on him to give them the authority to issue new stay-at-home orders to contain the virus. He said going back into “lockdown mode” would “really force Texans into poverty.” He said many of the local leaders calling for more authority have refused to enforce current executive orders already in place.

“What they need to show is action, not absenteeism,” Abbott said, pointing to enforcement of mask ordinances and to his own order last Thursday requiring them in most Texas counties.

His comments come a day after Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” when she said Harris County needs authority to issue a stay-athome order, though she never mentioned Abbott by name.

“We don’t have room to experiment,” Hidalgo said during the interview. “We don’t have room for incrementalism when we’re seeing these kinds of numbers.”

During his FOX4 interview in Dallas, Abbott said all along he has warned Texans that, as the state reopened, it would see an increase in the number of infections because of the “way a pandemic works.” But he said he’s also always been ready to implement more measures if the virus outbreak accelerated — as it has done over the last two weeks. Two weeks ago he shut down all bars and last week limited restaurants to 50 percent capacity. In addition, he’s barred elective surgeries in some of the state’s coronavirus hotspots to free up hospital beds.

Hospitalizations from lab-confirmed COVID-19 have more than doubled in Texas in the last two weeks to 8,698 — a 517-patient increase from a day earlier. Since Memorial Day, hospitalizations have spiked more than 400 percent.

Abbott told Beaumont’s KFDM, a CBS affiliate, that the state’s ICU bed capacity is being challenged in Bexar County, Nueces County, the Rio Grande Valley and the Midland-Odessa region. He said in those regions COVID-19 patients represent more than 60 percent of the current ICU patients.

“What we are doing is, we are surging people — medical staff — into those regions to assist, to make sure those regions will have all the medical resources they need to be able to respond to the growing hospitalizations,” Abbott said.