On coronavirus response, is Abbott leading from behind?

Nearly 9 in 10 Texans are living under orders to stay at home to curb the spread of the coronavirus, increasing pressure on Gov. Greg Abbott to impose a uniform statewide policy.

“At this point you have to bring the rogues in line,” said Rice University political scientist Mark Jones.

Jones said that by his count — with Abilene, Potter County and its county seat Amarillo all issuing orders Monday — 87% of Texans are living in cities or counties with a shelter-in-place or stay-at-home order.

As of close of business Monday, 72 Texas counties had issued some kind of order and in another nine counties without orders, the county seat had issued an order for its residents.

That left two-thirds of counties without orders, but Jones said the most consequential “rogues” in terms of population centers are Midland County, Guadalupe County (with the exception of Seguin), Victoria County and Grayson County (with the exception of Denison).

Describing himself as governor of all 254 Texas counties, Abbott has, to mounting criticism, hesitated to impose a statewide shelter-in-place order. Nearly two weeks ago, Abbott banned gatherings of more than 10 people and shuttered schools, restaurant dining rooms, bars and gyms — after many other governors had already taken that step.

Jones said the state has now reached the point where local officials governing the vast majority of Texans are in agreement that staying at home is the right thing to protect their constituents. The question before Abbott, he said, is “Why not go to the next level and adopt some baseline form of stay-at-home regulation instead of having a patchwork of similar but not identical regulations across the state?”

Jones said a statewide order would also push counties like Comal and Collin, which he said have implemented “pretty light regulations,” to tighten their rules.

Without a statewide order, Texas is also becoming day by day more of an outlier nationally.

As of Monday, 30 of the 50 states had issued stay-in-place orders of some sort.

Of the five biggest states, two — California and New York — have issued statewide orders, and three — Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania have not. Of the dozen largest states, seven had orders and five didn’t, until Monday, when Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, issued a statewide order.

Northam had followed much the same logic as Abbott, shutting down schools and non-essential businesses and banning gatherings of more than 10 people, while suggesting that issuing a statewide order was really a matter of semantics. But dismayed by images of Virginians still gathering on beaches and other public areas, Northam said Monday, "It is clear more people still need to hear this basic message: Stay home."

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, also has resisted a statewide order, while issuing stay-at-home orders for more than 20 of the biggest counties in the state, including those in and around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Like Texas, Pennsylvania and Virginia are states with big rural-urban divides and attendant political sensitivities.

But Abbott spokesman John Wittman said Monday that the state is following the guidance of federal health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“All that matters right now are the medical experts and the data and that’s what the governor is relying on to make his decisions,” Wittman said.

At a Sunday news conference, the governor significantly expanded a mandatory quarantine order for travelers from coronavirus hotspots and also announced that more than 16,000 hospital beds are available to treat COVID-19 patients, an increase from 8,100 beds on March 18.

Abbott will hold another news conference at 2 p.m. Tuesday.

11 days behind New York

The state has seen a huge jump in the number of coronavirus tests given to Texans as Abbott aims to ramp up access to testing across the state. The Department of State Health Services reported Monday that 35,880 total tests have been given to Texans. That figure is a 40.8% increase from the previous day. Nearly 2,900 positive cases were reported statewide Monday, a 13.6% increase from the day before.

So far, 124 out of 254 Texas counties are reporting cases, a jump from Friday’s count of 105 and Sunday’s total of 118.

Now, the only wide swaths of the state with no reported cases are the Big Bend area, and parts of the panhandle and South Plains east of Lubbock.

The state reported 38 coronavirus deaths as of midday Monday. That’s double the number from Thursday.

Texas is roughly 11 days behind New York state in terms of number of positive results, said Claus Wilke, a University of Texas biologist who studies the evolution of diseases, with the number of positives and the number of deaths doubling roughly every few days.

“Even though we’re testing more, we’re not keeping up with the increasing caseload,” Wilke said.

In declining to issue a statewide shelter-in place order a week ago Sunday, while encouraging local officials to do it on their own, Abbott said, “What may be right for places like the large urban areas may not be right at this particular point in time for the more than 200 counties that have zero cases of COVID-19,” the disease caused by the virus.

But, Wilke said, “I don’t think it’s a good thing to think, ‘Rurally, they have lower population densities; it’s fine.’ It can spread in church service, or choir practice. I don’t want to stereotype rural communities, but if they meet every Sunday in church, all it takes is one person to pick it up and bring it home, and it infects all their friends and family. Then you have a rural outbreak, and don’t have the medical infrastructure to deal with it all.”

Political attacks

Texas Democrats, meanwhile, have savaged Abbott for his reticence.

A March 26 email to supporters from Beto O’Rourke’s new PAC, Powered by the People, sought signatures on a petition asking Abbott to save lives by issuing a statewide shelter-in-place order. It opened with a false statement conflating Abbott with Lt. Gov Dan Patrick:

“Governor Greg Abbott agrees with Trump’s move to try to return to ‘normal’ and says that this is a time for vulnerable people like seniors to deal with the sacrifice. It’s unacceptable. This kind of inaction will kill people in Texas – young as well as old,” it states.

The references are clearly to statements by Patrick that Abbott never embraced.

On Monday, Texas Democratic Party Executive Director Manny Garcia issued a statement, asserting that, "Simply put, Governor Abbott's response to the Coronavirus epidemic has been inefficient, weak, and late.

“By not following CDC guidelines and refusing to get ahead of the coronavirus outbreak, Governor Abbott has put all Texans in a dangerous, vulnerable place. Abbott's actions are the reason why Texas ranks 49th in coronavirus response and cases in Texas continue to skyrocket, putting us all at risk. Abbott now has a choice to make: show leadership by changing course immediately or watch Texans continue to get sick and die."

But the ranking of Texas as 49th was credited to a study by WalletHub, a personal finance website, using data available at 4 p.m. on March 16, a very long time ago in the life of this crisis.

Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, said that it is disturbing to see politics as usual in such a fraught environment.

“It’s a whole other thing in a national crisis to see them causing noise in the lines when constructive engagement in the public policy process would help and is of the utmost importance,” Henson said.

“I think if somebody wants to say Gov. Abbott could be doing a little bit more to send leadership messages, whether he implements a shelter-in-place policy or not, possibly,” Henson said.

“But I think they do risk push back and a backlash that could be harmful if he activates some degree of resistance,” Henson said. “That’s a very subtle call with a bunch of unknowns.”