(TMC ReportUPDATE | May 1, 2020, 3:15 p.m.:) Harris County’s ‘Stay Home, Work Safe’ order officially ended today as Phase 1 of the governor’s reopening plan begins, but local leaders including health care executives urge the community to remain vigilant and to continue the safety practices established over the past two months.
At a Friday morning news conference, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo reiterated that the pandemic is not over as Texas reported 50 deaths on Thursday and more than 1,000 new cases of COVID-19. In addition, Harris County reported 97 new cases and 1 additional death outside the city of Houston.
“It’s a grim reminder that this virus doesn’t respect dates on a calendar,” Hidalgo said. “It’s impossible to pull a date out of thin air and say to the virus: ‘We’re ready for you to go away now.’ That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works. We can’t allow ourselves to be desensitized to what’s happening, to lose our sense of humanity. Fifty Texans—brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, sons and daughters—had their lives cut short yesterday from a single, invisible killer that still lurks among us.”
Hidalgo urged people in Harris County to reopen slowly for the sake of public health.
“If the virus spreads like wildfire and the hospitals run out of space, or are running out of space again, things are going to have to shut back down—again,” Hidalgo said. “If we do the re-opening step by step, carefully, there’s a chance of succeeding by slowly reopening if we’re able to contain and we’re able to test and we’re able to trace.”
Hidalgo noted that the Texas attorney general issued a clarifying letter to try to clear confusion about what businesses could open and which should remain closed.
“If you’re not essential, as defined by the order I issued or by the governor’s order, and you are not reopen as classified under the governor’s order—the three reopenings he listed—you should be closed,” the county judge said.
She added that she would reissue her order later today to conform with the governor’s order and the attorney general’s clarification.
“Just because you can open, doesn’t mean you should,” she said, also announcing that she was adding another “T” for “teamwork” to her “test, trace, treat” reopening strategy.
“That ‘T’ involves every single resident in Harris County,” she said. “If these doctors and these nurses get overwhelmed, people die en masse. Plain and simple.”
Joining Hidalgo at this morning’s briefing was Esmaeil Porsa, M.D., MBA, MPH, president and CEO of Harris Health System; Umair A. Shah, M.D., MPH, executive director of Harris County Public Health; Marc L. Boom, M.D., president and CEO of Houston Methodist Hospital; and Paul Klotman, M.D., FACP, president and CEO of Baylor College of Medicine.