Tuesday’s biggest developments:
- Texas unemployment rate headed toward double digits, comptroller warns
- Quarantine ending for cruise ship evacuees at Lackland Air Force Base
- House Democratic Caucus members call for statewide stay-at-home order
- Texas’ largest counties issuing stay-at-home orders
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Denton County asks state for temporary hospital at site of state-supported living center
[2:57 p.m.] Local officials in Denton asked Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday to build a temporary hospital at the site of a state-run home for people with disabilities.
At least six residents of the Denton State Supported Living Center have tested positive for the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19, Denton Mayor Chris Watts and Denton County Judge Andy Eads wrote.
“The residents and 1,400 employees of the Facility are at great risk for a rapid devastating spread of COVID-19 throughout the campus,” they wrote to Abbott. “In such an event, the local medical capacity could be quickly overwhelmed.” — Edgar Walters
Texas unemployment rate headed toward double digits, comptroller warns
[2:50 p.m.] After hitting a record low unemployment rate of 3.5% in January, Texas is seeing an unemployment rate around 9% as the new coronavirus spreads, Comptroller Glenn Hegar said Thursday.
In an interview with Texas Standard, Hegar added that he has "no doubt that people are going to start forecasting it’s going to be slightly in the low double digits.”
Unemployment insurance claims filed with The Texas Workforce Commission reached 16,038 from March 8 through March 14, the agency said in its latest release, compared with 11,556 claims filed during the same week in 2019. — Mitchell Ferman
Quarantine ending for cruise ship evacuees at Lackland Air Force Base
[1:50 p.m.] American cruise ship evacuees from aboard the Grand Princess are starting to leave their two-week, federally mandated quarantine at the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.
A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said Tuesday that 97 evacuees had been released from quarantine Monday night and Tuesday morning. Another 18 people were expected to leave later Tuesday. The rest will leave over the next several days.
Hundreds of Americans from China's Hubei province and two cruise ships have been quarantined at Lackland since February. Of them, 21 became symptomatic and tested positive for the new coronavirus, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson. Five were from the Grand Princess ship.
The most recent group of evacuees at Lackland originally consisted of 149 Americans aboard the Grand Princess, the CDC spokesperson said. But after city and state officials claimed they only wanted Texans to be sent to San Antonio medical centers, where those who tested positive were treated, at least 25 evacuees from other states were eventually sent to finish quarantine in their home states. — Jolie McCullough
U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady: Lock down virus, not entire economy
[1:45 p.m.] U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, echoed Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Tuesday, saying that efforts to mitigate the spread of the new coronavirus shouldn’t lock down the entire economy.
In an MSNBC interview Tuesday, Brady said, “In Texas, our governor and lieutenant governor have made some smart decisions that have allowed our local communities to really lock down where it made sense … and I think we’ve done an awfully good job of trying to contain this virus without locking down the entire community.”
Brady also said, “Let’s lock down this virus, don’t lock down the entire economy – we’ve still got some big challenges ahead.”
In an interview Monday, Patrick said that that he would die from the new coronavirus than see the economy destroyed for his grandchildren by overreaction to the disease. Medical officials have urged people to social distance and stay home in an attempt to not overwhelm the medical system with more patients than they have the staffing and resources to treat. — Stacy Fernández
Texas’ largest counties issuing stay-at-home orders
[8:40 a.m.] Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price and Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley on Tuesday ordered residents to stay in their homes as much as possible as the state grapples with the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus.
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff on Monday evening issued a “Stay Home, Work Safe” order effective 11:59 p.m. Tuesday through 11:59 p.m. April 9. The move came one day after Dallas County issued a similar order. And the Austin City Council and Travis County will team up Tuesday to issue a similar stay-at-home decree, Austin Mayor Steve Adler told The Texas Tribune on Monday. — Alex Samuels
House Democratic Caucus members call for statewide stay-at-home order
[11:45 a.m.] Most of the House Democratic Caucus has signed onto a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott asking him to issue a statewide stay-at-home order to help combat the new coronavirus.
“We recognize a statewide order of this magnitude will have an unprecedented impact on Texans and their livelihoods,” the letter says. “In order to flatten the curve and give us time to win this war, we need to take immediate action.” — Cassandra Pollock
Precautions taken to slow spread of COVID-19 could hurt rural hospitals
[5 a.m.] As hospitals increase capacity to treat a growing number of patients who may become infected with COVID-19, rural hospital administrators say financial hardships could force them to do the opposite.
The administrators say the precautions being taken, such as the cancellation of elective surgeries — which are one of the hospitals' most lucrative income streams — threaten to hasten the rate of closures.
“If we’re not able to address the short-term cash needs of rural hospitals, we’re going to see hundreds of rural hospitals close before this crisis ends,” Alan Morgan, the head of the National Rural Health Association, recently told Kaiser Health News. “This is not hyperbole.” — Edgar Walters