AUSTIN, Texas – Governor Greg Abbott said Tuesday that cases of the new coronavirus are beginning to level out across the state.
As of Tuesday, 19,945 COVID-19 cases were reported among residents of Texas. Of those, 511 have died and 6,486 people have recovered. More than 205,000 Texans have been tested for the virus so far.
Hospitalizations have remained roughly steady, Abbott said, with 1,491 patients currently receiving hospital treatment.
Abbott said the loss of lives in Texas is a “sheer fraction” of what some other states have seen. He said it’s not because the virus doesn’t exist here but said Texans have done a “great job at reducing their interactions with one another and are following distance standards.”
April 9 was the only day that more than 1,000 people tested positive in a single day in Texas, Abbott said.
By the end of the week, Abbott said 1,200 Texas National Guard personnel will be mobilized to help test 3,500 more people per day. He said more than 60 new drive-thru testing sites have recently opened across the state.
The governor said there are more than 2,300 ICU beds and more than 8,300 ventilators available in Texas.
“We are very well equipped to address the health care needs of anyone who may test positive for COVID-19,” Abbott said.
While the state has not yet experienced a shortage of health care workers, Abbott encouraged medical workers to register to volunteer on the state’s website in the event they are needed.
RELATED: COVID-19 not expected to peak for several weeks in Texas, Gov. Abbott says
From the auditorium of the State Capitol, Abbott used the statistics to support his plan for re-opening businesses and other activities in Texas. He said in addition to the loss of lives, COVID-19 is to blame for another big loss in Texas: the loss of people’s livelihoods.
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Abbott said he and his new economic team are efforting a program to get Texans back to work.
Abbott said there are close to a half-million jobs available now in Texas and urged job seekers to look for jobs on the website WorkinTexas.com.
He also said people would be able to purchase groceries with their SNAP benefits.
The Governor said he would announce the next steps for opening up Texas in a new state declaration on April 27.
Last Friday, Gov. Abbott announced that public and private schools and higher education campuses will be closed for in-person learning for the rest of the academic year, but said other parts of Texas will soon begin to reopen, including some retailers if their products can be sold via drive-thru, delivery or curbside and if state guidelines can be followed.
All state parks have also reopened, as of Monday, under Abbott’s order. Visitors are required to wear face coverings or masks and follow social distancing guidelines and gatherings should not exceed five people.
The state has provided more than 4.8 million masks, more than 300,000 face shields, 2 million gloves and 16,000 gowns to hospitals in Texas
The state has paid about 80% of unemployment claims filed with 1,579,000 claims filled and more than $1.4 billion paid out
COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new virus, stands for coronavirus disease 2019. The disease first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, but spread around the world in early 2020, causing the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic in March.
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