Governor Greg Abbott called for extra-state aid on Monday to tackle the third wave of COVID-19 in Texas.
The request came while a district hospital in Houston was pitching tents to house their COVID-19 spill. Private hospitals in the district have already requested that their staff be vaccinated against the corona virus.
Meanwhile, the Dallas School District announced Monday that students and staff will be required to wear face masks from Tuesday. The Houston school district announced a mask mandate for its students and staff earlier this week, if its board of directors approves.
The highly contagious Delta variant heats up the wave.
Abbott directed the Texas Department of State Health Services to hire recruiting agencies to find additional medical staff from outside the state when the Delta Wave began to overwhelm its current human resources. He also sent a letter to the Texas Hospital Association asking hospitals to voluntarily postpone all elective medical procedures.
Houston hospital officials said last week that hospitals with beds did not have enough nurses to care for them.
Abbott also directed the state Department of Health and the Texas Division of Emergency Management to open additional COVID-19 antibody infusion centers to treat patients who do not need hospital care, and the availability of COVID-19 vaccines to the underserved communities of the State to expand. He also announced that it will provide approximately $ 267 million in food services through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That was on top of the $ 3.9 billion in benefits previously granted since April 2020.
The governor is taking action to repeal his emergency ordinance prohibiting county and local government authorities from requiring masks and social distancing to reduce the risk of COVID-19. The Republican has repeatedly said that Texans have the information and intelligence to make their own decisions about what steps to take to protect their health and the health of those around them.
Also on Monday, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins filed a lawsuit asking a judge to lift Abbott’s ban on the mask mandate.
Meanwhile, one of the two county hospitals in Houston pitched their tents to accommodate the COVID-19 spill. Harris Health System and Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in northeast Houston added nearly 2,000 square feet of medical tents in hopes of controlling expected increases in patient numbers and keeping staff and non-COVID-19 patients safe .
Last week, Houston area officials said the wave of Delta variant infections had hit the area’s hospitals so badly that some patients had to be moved out of town, with one being sent to North Dakota.
In Dallas, the superintendent of the state’s second-largest public school system announced Monday that the district would require masks and social distancing from Tuesday, despite Abbott’s ban.
At a news conference, Dallas Schools principal Michael Hinojosa said the school district’s legal counsel assured that Abbott’s order does not restrict the district’s rights as an employer and an educational institution to establish appropriate and necessary safety rules for its employees and students.
The principal of the Houston school district, the largest in the state, announced last week that the district would require masks and social distancing in the district’s schools upon approval by the district board on Thursday. A group of parents sued the Houston Independent School District over the weekend, questioning the requirements.
The rolling two-week daily average of new COVID-19 cases has increased 165% to 8,533, according to research from Johns Hopkins University. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 45% of the state’s population has been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
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