Posted on January 14, 2021 at 12:50 PM by TML Staff
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Urgent Updates
What’s the best source of information about vaccine rollouts
in Texas?
The best one-stop location for the state
rollout of vaccines is this page on the Department of State Health Services
website. It contains a useful overview of the staged rollout plan, where we
are in that plan as a state, and sub-links to things like provider location
maps and weekly allocation histories. We urge all city officials
concerned about vaccines to make themselves familiar with this website.
What’s the latest on counties where businesses can open at
only 50 percent capacity versus 75 percent capacity?
Executive order GA-32 was issued by the governor back on October 7,
2020. A key feature of GA-32 is the ability of most facilities (not including
bars, which are subject to additional restrictions) to reopen at 75% capacity,
unless they are located in a Trauma Service Area (TSA) with high COVID-19
hospitalizations. An "area with high hospitalizations" is defined
as "any Trauma Service Area that has had seven consecutive days in which
the number of COVID- 19 hospitalized patients as a percentage of total
hospital capacity exceeds 15 percent, until such time as the Trauma Service
Area has seven consecutive days in which the number of COVID- 19 hospitalized
patients as a percentage of total hospital capacity is 15 percent or
less." Hospitalization data by TSA can be found here.
Since we last reported on this issue, and
due to recent record hospitalizations, the Texas Department of
State Health Services (DSHS) updated their GA-32 webpage to add new regions/counties including
large metropolitan areas to the list of high COVID-19 hospitalization. In
fact, out of 22 TSAs in the state, 18 are listed on the DSHS webpage as
having high hospitalizations. Even the four TSAs that are not listed as exceeding
the threshold in GA-32 (Wichita Falls, Midland/Odessa, San Angelo, and Corpus
Christi) appear, based on the hospitalization data, to have exceeded 15%
COVID hospitalizations over the past seven days. It may be a matter of DSHS
not yet updating their website to reflect the updated data.
The county judge of a county located within
a high-hospitalization TSA may follow an attestation process with DSHS to
continue to operate at 75% capacity for certain businesses if there have been
fewer than 30 confirmed cases of COVID-19 over the previous 14 days within
the county. The affected counties that have submitted an attestation and
qualified to continue operating at 75% capacity are listed on the GA-32
webpage linked above.
Further Updates
Where can I find archived issues of the TML Coronavirus
Updates?
TML Coronavirus Updates are archived by date here and by subject here.
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