Abbott appeals for out-of-state help against COVID-19

(AP) – Gov. Greg Abbott appealed for out-of-state assistance Monday to combat the 3rd question of COVID-19 successful Texas.

The petition came arsenic a county-owned infirmary successful Houston raised tents to accommodate their COVID-19 overflow. Private hospitals successful the region already were requiring their unit to beryllium vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Meantime, the Dallas schoolhouse territory announced Monday that it would necessitate students and unit to deterioration look masks starting Tuesday. The Houston schoolhouse territory already announced a disguise mandate for its students and unit aboriginal this week if its committee approves.

The highly contagious delta variant is fueling the wave.

Abbott has directed the Texas Department of State Health Services to usage staffing agencies to find further aesculapian unit from beyond the state’s borders arsenic the delta question began to overwhelm its contiguous staffing resources. He besides has sent a missive to the Texas Hospital Association to petition that hospitals postpone each elective aesculapian procedures voluntarily.

Hospital officials successful Houston said past week that country hospitals with beds had insufficient numbers of nurses to service them.

Abbott besides directed the authorities wellness section and the Texas Division of Emergency Management to unfastened further COVID-19 antibody infusion centers to dainty patients not needing infirmary attraction and grow COVID-19 vaccine availability to the state’s underserved communities. He besides announced that astir $267 cardinal successful Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program nutrient benefits. That was connected apical of the $3.9 cardinal successful benefits antecedently allocated since April 2020.

The politician is taking enactment abbreviated of lifting his exigency bid banning region and section authorities entities from requiring the wearing of masks and societal distancing to little the COVID-19 risk. The Republican has said repeatedly that Texans person the accusation and quality to marque their ain decisions connected what steps to instrumentality to support their wellness and the wellness of those astir them.

Also Monday, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins filed a suit asking a justice to onslaught down Abbott’s disguise mandate ban.

Meantime, 1 of Houston’s 2 county-owned hospitals was pitching tents to accommodate its COVID-19 overflow. Harris Health System and Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital successful northeastern Houston added astir 2,000 quadrate feet of aesculapian tents in the anticipation of taking power of the anticipated summation successful diligent measurement and support unit and non-COVID-19 patients safe.

Last week, Houston country officials said the question of delta variant infections truthful strained the area’s hospitals that immoderate patients had to beryllium transferred retired of the city, with 1 being sent to North Dakota.

In Dallas, the superintendent of the state’s second-largest nationalist schoolhouse strategy announced Monday that the territory would necessitate masks and societal distancing from Tuesday, Abbott’s prohibition notwithstanding.

At a quality conference, Dallas schools Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said the schoolhouse district’s ineligible advisors assured that Abbott’s bid does not bounds the district’s rights arsenic an leader and acquisition instauration to found tenable and indispensable information rules for its unit and students.

The superintendent of the Houston schoolhouse district, the state’s largest, announced past week that the territory would necessitate masks and societal distancing successful the district’s schools effectual upon territory committee support Thursday. A radical of parents sued the Houston Independent School District implicit the weekend, challenging the requirements.

The rolling two-week regular mean of caller COVID-19 cases has accrued by 165% to 8,533, according to Johns Hopkins University probe data. About 45% of the state’s colonisation has been vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.