Governor Abbott is we close.
Another week we continue an upward
trend of COVID-19 cases in Texas.
What are your thoughts about
where things stand as of today?
Things are in good shape in Texas.
Understand a couple of very
important pieces of information.
Look at Harris County, for example.
The trend in Harris County
has been outstanding,
but you have about a 2% growth rate,
which is a very comfortable growth rate.
You have no concerns about exceeding
hospital capacity or anything like that.
And if you look at the trend
lines in the state of Texas,
what we have achieved is a long
multi week downward trend line.
In the percent positives
of those who are tested,
remember this in just the last three days
there been 100,000 people tested and the
positive test rate remains very low.
A month ago,
the positive test rate was more than 10%.
Today it's around 5%,
so the trend lines in Texas
are going the right way.
But most importantly,
things are in great shape because we
have these surge teams that can quickly
respond to any areas that may flare up,
such as nursing homes.
Jails or meat packing facilities and nursing
homes. Just this week,
you announced several efforts to
advance and stop the spread of the virus
within that part of the population.
Sir, why didn't we do those things earlier?
We knew that our elderly were among
the most vulnerable in the population.
So we've been focused on
this from the beginning,
but with the resources we were
able to put together and the team
members we were able to put together,
including the Department,
state health services,
the Texas Division of Emergency Management,
the National Guard we're going in,
and we're testing every resident
and every staff member of every
nursing home in the entire state
of Texas over the course of just
the next two weeks and the National
Guard is going to go in and use
special methods to sanitize.
These nursing homes to make
sure they're safe.
Living spaces for
seniors. Let's talk about.
We've talked about testing. Some.
Let's talk now about the mortality
rate and projections for deaths
are growing on the national level.
The CDC is tracking 12 different models,
all indicating more than 100,000
cumulative deaths by June 1st.
Does such information impact
your plans for Texas?
And what are your projections
and your health teams projections
for the state of Texas?
So Texas has one of the lowest death
rates in the United States and
one of the lowest number of deaths
among states in the United States,
especially on a per capita basis
and one reason for that is because
we're doing such a good job with
regard to hospital capacity.
This cannot be overlooked.
This is maybe the most important factor,
and that is, we're never.
We never have been in a situation like
New York and New Jersey in New Orleans,
where they ran out of hospital
beds or ventilators.
We have plenty of hospital beds,
plenty of ventilators.
Plenty of ICU units where we can
make sure we can take care of all
Texans who may contract COVID-19.
The state is doing more testing,
circling back around to testing,
but the FDA warned of false negative.
From test by Abbott Labs.
Abbott Labs has provided 10s
of thousands of tests to Texas.
Are you concerned about
these false negatives?
What do you advise Texans
to do at this point?
Have been tested.
So we've been doing what I called
double testing to make sure that
we have the veracity of the Abbott
Labs test and the double testing
that I've seen shows positive
results for the Abbott Labs test.
And so we will continue
to use the Abbott Labs,
but we will always continue to
evaluate to make sure that it does
have a high level of accuracy.
And how are you gauging testing as related
to the ongoing reopening of this state?
So is a component of it understand
what is going to be taking place
in Harris County for example,
and that is what the massive
increase in testing that the state
is providing coupled with the
testing and tracing strategies
that Harris County will be doing,
Harris County in the state of Texas.
Together we will be able to
identify any type of hotspot,
provide the resources needed to respond,
and contain that hotspot.
That's exactly how we can both
open up businesses but contain
the spread of COVID-19.
At the very
same time, so we're anticipating
an announcement from you on Monday.
Will that announcement include
more businesses or widening the
percentage of customers and
clients a business can receive,
or a combination of both?
And what about bars we have to ask?
So we're looking at everything
you just mentioned and that is for
businesses already open considering
opening them up more for businesses
that are not open right now,
considering allowing them to open and listen.
We've been talking to bars every
single day about safe strategies.
They can use that really alters
the way bars work.
You know, bars are intended to bring
people together at a time when we
need to have distancing taking place,
but the bars have offered up
some great strategies.
The doctors are looking into.
We have a team of four doctors.
That evaluate all of these strategies
and we look forward to be making an
announcement on Monday. Alright, well,
look forward to that announcement here
in the Houston area today governor
we saw flooding rains around the
area throughout widespread June 1st.
Will also mark the start of hurricane season.
How is the state preparing to support a
local municipalities in the event of a
hurricane while still managing COVID-19?
So the good news is we've already
made the announcement on that.
We are ready to go.
We are hurricane tested.
The Texas Division of Emergency
Management already sent out the
notification that we are ready and
prepared for hurricane season.
We do it every year and obviously we
went through Hurricane Harvey and so we
were prepared for the worst. Obviously,
during this pandemic it poses unique,
even more critical challenges.
But we're prepared to handle
both the pandemic and a
hurricane if it were to happen.
Let's talk about.
A storm of a different sort.
The economy here in Texas
it's the double whammy.
It's COVID-19 and the oil crash.
What is your outlook for the
economy and the state of Texas
bouncing back from all of this.
I received some information
from the Dallas Federal Reserve.
This very positive and that is
even though we have far too many
unemployment claims in Texas.
Among all the large states
in the United States,
Texas ranks the lowest.
What that means is we have more
Texans getting back to work
and our goal obviously is is to
reduce unemployment claims by
having people return to work.
The great thing about Texans is
they're not asking for a handout,
they're asking just to go back to work.
We're going to
help him do that.
All right? Governor Abbott.
Thank you so much for joining
us and answering our questions.
This evening we appreciate
your time Sir, thank you.
My pleasure, thank you.