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Must Read Texas: April 6, 2020
Below is Must Read Texas subscriber email from April 6, 2020. This is a typical example which shows the variety and amount of content our email communicates every weekday morning. Note: formatting and styles might be off due to copy and pasting.
MustReadTexas.com – @MustReadTexas
BY: @MattMackowiak
MONDAY – 04/06/20
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Good morning from Austin, TX.
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Here's what you need to know in Texas today.
TOP NEWS
"Texas gets double punch from coronavirus and oil shock. 'There's no avoiding this one'," The Wall Street Journal's Collin Eaton and Jon Hilsenrath -- "Texas had one of the best economic records of any U.S. state after the 2008 financial crisis. In this crisis, it faces the prospect of a deep and prolonged downturn.
The Lone Star State is exposed to many of the pandemic and shutdown’s economic ill consequences, with three cities—Austin, Houston and Dallas—home to an abundance of service-sector jobs, especially at risk. A downturn in the oil industry and other businesses big in Texas, including airlines and ports, will likely amplify its pain. Industry analysts expect the oil downturn to outlast the current viral outbreak.
Oil prices surged late last week on hopes of a global pact involving Russia, Saudi Arabia and possibly the U.S. to cut crude output. But the prospects are uncertain, and even sizable oil production cuts would fall short of making up for the enormous drop in demand for fuels caused by coronavirus. Prices remain below $30, at levels where most Texas producers cannot make money.
Initial claims for unemployment benefits rose by 259,652 in Texas during the two weeks ended March 28, non-seasonally adjusted Labor Department data released Thursday show. Layoffs hit a broad range of businesses including accommodation and food services, transportation, health care, oil and gas, manufacturing, retail, real estate and construction, the data showed. Two major shale producers are asking Texas regulators to consider curtailing crude output for the first time since the 1970s.
For Texas, “there’s no avoiding this one,” said James Gaines, chief economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.
Prices in early Thursday trading surged 30% following President Trump’s tweet he expects Saudi Arabia and Russia will cut back on production. ...
President Trump promised to support the struggling oil industry in a meeting Friday with the chiefs of Exxon Mobil Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp., and several others, but few details emerged.
Even the world’s biggest producers can do little to stop the crippling effects of coronavirus. Mr. Trump has not said whether the U.S. will mandate cuts.
Economic growth in Texas, the second-most-populous U.S. state after California, has been closely linked to oil since a 1901 gusher at Spindletop east of Houston set off a boom. That interdependence brought prosperity but also the constant threat of busts—such as in the 1980s, when an oil-price crash led to a deep regional downturn, job losses in the tens of thousands, and hundreds of bank failures on the back of faulty loans.
Texas has become more diversified since and had one of the best economic expansions in the U.S. over the past decade, thanks partly to the shale-drilling boom. Its economic output grew at a 3.5% annual rate from 2009 through September 2019, outpacing every state except North Dakota and Washington, Commerce Department data show. Employment since December 2009 had grown by 2.7 million by January, accounting for nearly one in eight jobs created in the nation over that stretch, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics." Wall Street Journal
"Former Travis County DA Ronnie Earle has died," The Austin American-Statesman's Luz Moreno-Lozano -- "Ronnie Earle, who served as Travis County district attorney for more than 30 years and was best known for prosecuting some of Texas’ top politicians and for championing the community justice system, died Sunday after a long illness. He was 78.
“He was a great guy,” said friend and former Austin Mayor Bruce Todd. “He always wanted to get things right and he had a good sense of what was right for community. That was what he always wanted to be the goal and objective.”
Todd said Earle’s health has been declining for some time.
Through the county’s Public Integrity Unit, which he founded, Earle prosecuted some of the state’s top politicians — including then-Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox, then-U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — with mixed success." Austin American-Statesman
STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
"Gov. Abbott says Texas has 8,700 ventilators and nearly 20k hospital bed capacity," The Houston Chronicle's Taylor Goldenstein -- "For the first time, Gov. Greg Abbott described the state’s ventilator and hospital bed capacity in detail on Friday after fielding frequent questions in recent weeks about how Texas would manage a surge in COVID-19 cases.
The state has 19,695 hospital beds available — about 42 percent of Texas’ overall capacity, which has more than doubled about 8,000 in mid-March, Abbott said. The state also has 2,107 beds available in intensive care units.
“We are fully prepared for the hospital needs of Texans as we continue to respond to the coronavirus,” Abbott said, speaking from the Texas State Capitol Auditorium. “We start ahead of the curve, but we are sprinting to stay ahead of the curve.”
Estimates from a Harvard Global Health Institute study, however, indicate that cities like Houston and San Antonio could come up short unless bed capacity is significantly expanded.
The state also has 8,741 ventilators available, though Abbott did not give specifics on the state’s needs, only saying he is confident Texas “should have” the capacity to meet them. Abbott did not respond to a question about whether the state has requested more from the national stockpile, which the Washington Post reported Wednesday is nearly depleted.
By comparison, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said New York will need 30,000 ventilators at the peak of the crisis in a state with almost 10 million fewer people.
More than 55,000 Texans have been tested for COVID-19, according to the Department of State Health Services. About 6,000 have confirmed cases and 100 have died of the virus, according to data that Hearst Newspapers has collected from federal, state and local data and its own reporting. Abbott said Friday that 827 Texans have been hospitalized.
Abbott said the state continues to increase its supplies of masks, gloves and face shields; however, doctors and nurses across the state have said that they continue to face shortages of personal protective equipment. Carrie Williams, spokeswoman for the Texas Hospital Association, said Friday that hospitals “simply don’t have” what they need to protect staff.
Abbott credited his executive orders banning elective surgeries, suspending certain regulations to allow for more patients to be housed in the same room and loosening licensing requirements to allow graduate and retired medical professionals to work, as the reason for increased bed availability.
In the Houston area, about 33 percent of beds area available, or 3,332 beds out of 10,079, Abbott said. Other parts of the state were in better shape, such as the San Antonio area, where 46 percent of beds are available, or 2,997 beds out of 6,463, and Austin where 53 percent of beds are available.
According to data released by the Harvard Global Health Institute study, under a moderate scenario where 40 percent of the population is infected over a 12-month period, hospitals in Houston would need 14,300 beds over that time period — about 77 percent more than it has now.
Under the same scenario in San Antonio, the city would need 6,030 beds over 12 months, or about 3,000 more than it has available now.
Former state Rep. John Zerwas, a physician who is now the University of Texas System's vice chancellor for health affairs, went over the state’s plan for handling a potential overflow of patients ailing from COVID-19. Zerwas said state officials have been working with the Texas Hospital Association to come up with come up creative ways to increase bed capacity.
The first option they’d look at would be converting operating rooms or post-anesthesia care units, while also adding equipment and staffing, which Zerwas said could yield the state about 10,000 additional beds.
If still more beds were needed, Zerwas said the state would then look to other facilities, such as ambulatory surgery centers, freestanding emergency rooms, long-term acute care centers and nursing homes.
In the most urgent scenario, the state could move less critical patients to hotels and motels, reopen closed hospitals or build stand-up care sites in remote areas operated by the local government, hospital or both, as New York has done.
Some of those makeshift care sites are already in the works: In Dallas, state officials are working to open the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas with a 250-bed capacity. About the same number of beds are available in a San Antonio exposition hall at the Freeman Coliseum that’s being converted for use as a field hospital. Houston officials are making plans to open one at the NRG Stadium.
Zerwas also said he feels comfortable with the state’s ventilator supply, adding that more are on the way. Zerwas said companies are developing innovative new ventilators “that can actually be produced fairly quickly and at a pretty low cost.”
“I think we’re going to be in a good place,” Zerwas said. “We’re fortunate that we’re seeing what’s going on elsewhere across the world and in our own country, and it has given us that opportunity … to incorporate these (social distancing) practices, which I believe is going to blunt the curve significantly, and with that, hopefully blunt any extraordinary need that we’re going to have for ventilation devices.”
Abbott and DSHS Dr. John Hellerstedt urged Texans to continue following social distancing guidelines put in place to reduce the spread of coronavirus.
“Don’t forget that this is a future that we can control with the kind of activities that we’re engaging in right now, so the things that we’re doing in terms of social distancing, hygiene, cleanliness and sanitation of our environment,” Hellerstedt said. “That can alter the course of what the future is like.”" Houston Chronicle
"Can You Lead in a Pandemic Without Picking Sides? Greg Abbott Is Trying," The New York Times' Elaina Plott -- "On Thursday, in a public service announcement filmed in his wood-paneled office, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas gestured toward his most recent executive order propped up in front of him, one that Democrats, health care professionals, and a growing number of Republicans in the state had been clamoring for. Beginning that day, he said, all Texans were required to “stay at home, except to provide essential services or do essential things, like going to the grocery store.”
Just don’t call it a stay-at-home order. “That obviously is not what we have articulated here,” Mr. Abbott stressed when first unveiling the directive on Tuesday. “This is a standard that is based on essential services and essential activities.”
As the coronavirus spreads across the United States, officials like Mr. Abbott, a Republican who was re-elected to a second term in 2018, have been forced to weigh the preventive value of wide-reaching public-health mandates against the economic cost they will inevitably wring. That debate is especially fraught in Texas, where increased calls for collective action find themselves at odds with an abiding ethos of “don’t tread on me.”
It’s a big moment for governors, who, along with having crises to manage, may see their crisis management as a springboard beyond the state capitol. In New York, Andrew Cuomo’s appointment-viewing televised briefings have sparked calls for a presidential run. Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer already sports a T-shirt emblazoned with President Trump’s coronavirus coinage for her, “That woman from Michigan.”" New York Times
"Gov. Greg Abbott keeps calm in COVID-19 crisis. Too calm, some say," The Houston Chronicle's Jeremy Wallace -- "Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s cautious, dispassionate response to the coronavirus pandemic has frustrated Texans looking for more urgency as the state faces its biggest public health crisis since smallpox a century ago.
While other governors hold daily briefings for the public, with details on everything from the number of hospital beds and ventilators to heart-rending accounts of those who have died from the disease, Abbott’s public addresses are fewer and shorter. He keeps his emotions firmly in check when talking about Texans who have been “lost” to COVID-19.
Through it all, Abbott has never lost the steady, calm veneer he developed over two decades in the judiciary — first as a trial judge in Houston, then as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court and as attorney general.
“He plays defensively instead of offensively,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.
The Texas Democratic Party, meanwhile, is trumpeting that Abbott “continues to mismanage the coronavirus crisis every single day.”
The party says Abbott was too slow in closing restaurants and bars and in issuing a statewide order to get people to stay home.
“Texas Republicans continue to downplay and mismanage the coronavirus pandemic,” party spokesman Abhi Rahman said. “Texans deserve thoughtful leaders that are ready to do whatever it takes to keep us safe.”
After weeks of stalling, Abbott issued a statewide stay-at-home order Tuesday, behind 30 other states. Friday, he disclosed that Texas has 8,700 ventilators for acute patients — again, weeks after that count was made public in other states. He still hasn’t said how many ventilators Texas might need.
Yet Jillson says Abbott’s approach seems to be working: Abbott is getting mostly good marks for having a steady hand at the wheel and tamping down potential panic, even as some worry that he’s not being aggressive enough.
“His career is built around fact and analysis and a dispassionate ruling,” Jillson said.
Abbott has in the past acknowledged that his work as a judge shaped his approach to being governor.
“A judge presides over legal disputes, and, the fact of the matter is, you have lawyers on each side representing different interests, and 99 percent of the time those interests work themselves out and the judge never really has to get involved,” Abbott said in a 2017 interview with the Austin American-Statesman.
“The same is true in the Capitol,” Abbott said. “You have legislators that will have different interests, and 99 percent of the time they will come together and work things out without the judge or the governor needing to get involved.”
Republican leaders say Abbott has been careful in measuring the repercussions of each move.
House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, said he sees Abbott in the middle of a historic crisis calmly trying to strike the right balance. He defended Abbott’s actions, saying that while Texas was behind New York in some instances — such as the order to close dine-in restaurants and bars, Abbott was actually faster than New York when you consider the number of coronavirus cases each state had when the shutdowns occurred.
He said his data show that Abbott was instituting restrictions when Texas had a fraction of the cases New York did when that state took similar action." Houston Chronicle
"Dallas Co. Extends Shelter-At-Home Order Until April 30," via CBS DFW -- "Dallas County Commissioners have extended the disaster declaration to May 20, and Judge Clay Jenkins said the shelter-at-home order is extended until April 30 amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Friday morning, commissioners voted 4-1 to extend the declaration. All businesses not deemed “essential” will remain closed also.
John Wiley Price however, voted against the extension, saying he has “real trepidation about this journey for 60 days,” citing concern for Southern Dallas residents and small business owners. “This will decimate my community,” Price said, regarding the continuation of business closures.
Price wasn’t the only leader to push back on the extension at the commissioner’s special called meeting, many said economic pain of the extended order proposal may hurt people too much." CBS DFW
"Governor warns emergency pop-up hospital will be moved from Dallas County if it isn’t used," The Dallas Morning News' Dana Brahman -- "Gov. Greg Abbott’s chief of staff warned Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins in a letter Sunday that if the county doesn’t intend to use pop-up hospital space to treat coronavirus patients, officials will move the facility elsewhere.
Luis Saenz wrote in his letter that he had been informed the county judge indicated to federal officials “that you would not be utilizing the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center for hospital and healthcare use.”
Jenkins called the message from the governor’s office “a crazy letter" at a news conference Sunday afternoon, saying it was “essentially untrue.” He added that county staff members, along with other government and military leaders, were working around the clock to make sure the hospital was ready.
“We need that asset,” he said. “We need that asset when we need it.”" Dallas Morning News
"Houston hasn't reported a surge of coronavirus cases. But its hospitals tell a different story," NBC News' Mike Haxenbaugh -- "Two weeks ago, Houston Methodist Hospital opened a special unit to treat critically ill coronavirus patients. The city had reported only a handful of confirmed cases at that point, but the hospital’s 24-bed coronavirus ICU filled up in only about a week, far faster than doctors anticipated.
Alexandra Carnahan, 26, one of the nurses assigned to the unit, was surprised by the number of patients who were in their 30s or 40s, with no prior health problems. Now they were intubated and in critical condition, suffering from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.
These patients can’t have visitors, and most are heavily sedated. So Carnahan and other nurses hold their hands while checking vitals, “to maintain that human connection,” she said. The nurses remind them where they are and try to explain why their families can’t be there, though it’s difficult to know whether the patients can hear them.
A few days ago, one of them, a man in his 50s, unexpectedly squeezed Carnahan’s hand while she and another nurse bathed him, she said. He apparently could hear her voice, and seemed to be reacting. Carnahan told him everything was going to be OK. Afterward, she pulled off her protective mask and face shield, stepped into another room, and cried." NBC News
"Laredo appears to be one of the first cities to mandate people cover their nose, mouth," The Laredo Morning Times' Julia Wallace -- "Although many Laredoans immediately condemned the idea, starting Thursday they will have to wear something that covers their nose and mouth if they enter any building that is not their house, such as H-E-B, gas stations and even their place of work.
Mayor Pete Saenz said Wednesday at a virtual press briefing that they are still working out a couple kinks of this mandate, which was ordered by City Council at their Tuesday night virtual meeting; For instance, if broadcast journalists will have to wear masks while on air, or if customers at the bank should approach a teller with a mask on.
“People that enter their lobbies with a mask obviously present an awkward, delicate situation, especially at a financial institution,” Saenz said. “So we’re trying to go through those scenarios and see if we can carve out some common sense approaches to it.”
On Facebook, hundreds of Laredo residents expressed indignation about being forced by the city to purchase a mask, especially since they are so hard to come by right now.
However City Council never mandated that people wear masks specifically — people can wear a bandana, a scarf or even a spare piece of fabric as long as it covers their nose and mouth.
In fact at a noon press briefing on Wednesday, City Manager Robert Eads begged that people not seek out N95 masks in order to comply with this order. Those masks should be reserved for doctors, nurses and other health care workers, he said.
“All we’re doing is asking and requiring the public to cover themselves, cover their mouths and noses,” Eads said. ...
Laredo appears to be one of the first cities to adopt this kind of regulation. Health officials in Riverside County, California, west of Los Angeles, have recommended people cover their noses and mouths while in public.
However, this is a recommendation; the City of Laredo is ordering that people take this precaution, or else face a fine of up to $1,000.
The mandate goes into effect April 1 and lasts until April 30. Likewise City Council has enacted a curfew for all residents from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. People can only be out during these hours if they are working or need essentials at that moment. Council also voted to extend the Stay at Home Work Safe order that has closed many local businesses and banned all public and private gatherings unless deemed essential." Laredo Morning Times
"Corpus Christi mayor asking tourists to not visit amid virus," via AP -- "Officials in Corpus Christi said they’re looking at ways to discourage vacationers from visiting the popular South Texas city amid the coronavirus outbreak in the state.
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported Mayor Joe McComb is looking at possibly restricting residential vacation rentals in his coastal city during the upcoming weeks.
“We’re going to be looking at the possibilities of trying to convince them that coming down here is not in their best interest or our best interest,” McComb said. “Because the traveling bug comes with them and we just want to protect our citizens.”
The majority of COVID-19 cases in Nueces County, where Corpus Christi is located, are travel-related, according to public documents.
Texas has more than 6,100 cases and at least 105 related deaths, state health officials said Saturday.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older adults and people with health problems, it can cause pneumonia. The World Health Organization said this week that 95% of the deaths in Europe were of people over 60." AP
2020
"Texas opens door to more mail-in voting in 2020 elections," The Houston Chronicle's Benjamin Wermund -- "Texas is opening the door to an expansion of mail-in voting during the coronavirus outbreak, though the state is unlikely to heed calls to have every voter cast ballots by mail to avoid exposure to COVID-19 at polling places.
The state’s director of elections on Thursday sent guidance to elections officials in all 254 counties telling them that voters can ask for mail-in ballots if they are worried that coronavirus will make showing up to a polling place a danger to their health.
The guidance isn’t a mandate and it doesn’t create new policy. But it offers a green light to county officials to take a lenient approach in approving requests for mail-in ballots.
Democrats and voting rights advocates have pushed for states to expand voting by mail, arguing that forcing people to show up to polling places during the largest public health crisis in a century is tantamount to vote suppression. Texas has so far opted to delay elections, rather than fully expand mail-in voting, pushing the statewide runoffs from May to mid-July.
This year’s elections could end up being some of the most consequential in years, with control of the state House, a slew of congressional seats and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s re-election all on the line, not to mention the potential emergence of Texas as a battleground state in the presidential race.
The guidance notes that the election code currently includes a “disability” clause that allows voters to apply for an absentee ballot if showing up at a polling place risks “injuring the voter’s health.” It suggests counties can get a court order to temporarily expand eligibility for mail-in voting — especially in areas under quarantine.
The guidance also suggests that counties be more lenient with curbside voting and says counties should consider recruiting and training more poll workers this year." Houston Chronicle
TEXANS IN DC
Ted Cruz guest column: "Small businesses are hurting badly. Here’s how the CARES Act will help," via Yahoo Finance -- "Our country is in crisis. In the United States alone, thousands of people have already lost their lives to the coronavirus and millions more are at risk. At the federal, state, and local levels, the government has taken dramatic action to stop the spread of this dangerous disease and save as many lives as possible, restricting travel, putting in place stay-at-home orders, and limiting interactions with those outside your household. Taking these steps has been critical for protecting the public health of our nation, but it has also come at an enormous cost to our small businesses.
As the coronavirus hits more communities and more protective measures are put in place, our neighborhood restaurants, movie theaters, hardware stores, nail salons, and many other local establishments have effectively been forced to shut down. That’s bad news not just for small-business owners but for the millions of workers they employ.
Texas is home to more than 2.7 small businesses, making up nearly half of our private sector workforce. All told, American small businesses employ 58.9 million people. These small businesses are the backbone of our economy." Yahoo Finance
REMAINDERS
NBA / SAN ANTONIO SPURS: "Kobe, Duncan, Garnett headline Basketball Hall of Fame class" AP