Texas is getting back to work - April 28

[dan_s]

Gov. Greg Abbott’s stay at home order expires Thursday, and many Texas businesses may open Friday
Malls, stores, restaurants, movie theaters may open at 25% capacity Friday, though barber shops, hair salons, massage parlors and gyms must wait until mid-May, he said.

Updated at 1:52 p.m., April 28, 2020: to correct that Abbott lifted the 14-day self-quarantine order only on road and air travelers from Louisiana, not on air travelers from New York and other COVID-19 hotspots.

AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday said his statewide stay-at-home order on coronavirus will expire on Thursday as scheduled, while Texas malls, stores, movie theaters and restaurants may open the next day — with 25% occupancy. Barber shops, hair salons, gyms, massage establishments, tattoo parlors, video arcades and bowling alleys must wait until mid-May at the earliest to reopen, he said.

Outdoor sports such as golf and tennis may resume with no more than four participants in a match, and they must observe social distancing guidelines, he said.

Businesses will be free to choose not to open, and in less populated counties with five or fewer confirmed cases, they will be able to open at 50% capacity, he said. < 47 Texas counties have zero COVID-19 cases.

Museums and public libraries may reopen, again with the 25% capacity limitation, though they’re not required to, Abbott said. Saying they want to be as cautious as possible, both the Dallas Museum of Art and Nasher Sculpture Center said Monday they have no plans to reopen Friday.

Abbott said that in shopping malls, food courts, play areas and interactive displays and settings must remain closed.

The Republican governor “strongly” recommended that Texans wear masks while in public. However, he said local requirements imposed by Democratic-controlled commissioners courts in Dallas and Harris counties — as well as elsewhere — are superseded by his new orders. No one can be fined by a locality for not wearing a facial covering, he said.

“Opening Texas must occur in phases,” Abbott said. “Obviously, not all businesses can open all at once. A more strategic approach is required to ensure that we don’t reopen only to have to close down again.”

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who has publicly sparred with Abbott throughout the crisis, told CNN Monday night that the governor’s plan was moving faster than he’d like.

In a later statement, he said he had asked Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Dr. Philip Huang and infectious disease and epidemiology specialists, from area hospitals to review Abbott’s orders. He said that he would work with local businesses to develop rules to help enforce social distancing including the 25% capacity limit for the businesses that will reopen on May 1.

Jenkins said it was incumbent upon residents to use their best judgment as Texas enters the next phase of the fight against the coronavirus.

“Most other plans that open businesses in phases don’t put places like movie theaters in the first group to open,” he said in the statement. "The orders have changed but the science that will keep us safe has not. I believe North Texans will focus not on ‘what can they do’ but rather ‘what should they do.’ It will be imperative for North Texans to make good choices particularly where these orders veer from the advice of public health experts. Following science is the best way to keep safe and open the economy.”

Meanwhile, Abbott’s move drew praise from Texas’ leading business associations, though health officials were less fulsome.

Dr. Mark Casanova, president of the Dallas County Medical Society, had not completely reviewed Abbott’s plan. However, he said, based on reports he had seen, it could “theoretically” work. “The key is going to be testing capacity,” he said.

Some Democrats said he’s jeopardizing recent gains by moving more aggressively than is warranted, considering the state’s limited ability to conduct COVID-19 testing and contact tracing.

And it remains to be seen how many restaurants will reopen, or how many patrons they will attract. Despite a handful of protests that have cropped up in Dallas and Austin, recent polls have found a majority of Americans support social distancing restrictions.

Abbott said loosening restrictions he imposed in recent weeks to halt the spread of the lethal virus is the reward for impressive compliance by Texans with his requests for self-isolation and social distancing.

“The price has been steep,” as many Texans lost jobs and can’t pay their bills, he said.

While he’ll continue to stress social distancing and rely on doctors for advice, Abbott said he’ll keep tight protections of “the most vulnerable,” such as nursing-home residents, while letting many others exercise more discretion as to what is safe in the age of COVID-19.

For instance, he lifted most restrictions on doctors, dentists, nurses and other health care professionals, saying they need to get to work, though they must follow the COVID-19 protocols recommended by their licensure boards. Hospitals must reserve 15% of their capacity for coronavirus cases.
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Including undocumented people living in Texas, the state has ~30 million residence. At the time of this post, 690 of the 26,171 reported cases in Texas have died.
Assuming the death rate in Texas triples between now and year-end:
> your chance of dying from COVID-19 is 0.0069%.
> If you are under 50, your chance of dying in Texas from COVID-19 is 0.00025%. If you are under 50 and in good health you can reduce your chance of dying from COVID is 90% less or 0.000025%. Your chance of winning the lottery is better.

63% of those who have died were over 70 and 44% were over 80.
Less than 8% of Texans who have died were 20-50.
Zero deaths in Texas have been under 20 years old.
Most of those who died had serious health conditions which contributed to their death.

[dan_s]

This is encouraging:
Scientists at the Jenner Institute at Oxford University have a head start on developing an effective vaccine against the deadly COVID-19. They're testing a vaccine that's already been proven harmless to humans in previous trials on an earlier version of the coronavirus.

That's helped them forge ahead to schedule tests on human volunteers to prove it's safe and effective. According to The New York Times, if the scientists get fast-track approval from regulators, they could roll out a few million doses by September, months before a vaccine has been anticipated, providing the initial testing shows that it works.

Recent evidence about its efficacy is encouraging. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health's Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana inoculated six rhesus macaque monkeys with single doses of the Oxford vaccine.

They infected the monkeys with large quantities of the novel coronavirus, a dose that sickened other monkeys at the same facility. But more than 28 days later, according to the Times, all six were healthy.

While there is no guarantee that the monkey results will parallel human trials, rhesus macaque monkeys are "the closest thing we have to humans," said Dr. Vincent Munster, the researcher who conducted the test. According to the Times, the monkey results will help accelerate Oxford's efforts to come up with a vaccine.

"It is a very, very fast clinical program," noted Emilio Emini, a director of the vaccine program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is funding many competing efforts. Human trials on 1,110 human volunteers began April 23 on the Oxford vaccine and are expected to be finished by September.

Meanwhile, the world’s largest vaccine maker, the Serum Institute of India, said it would not wait for the trial to end and already was making 40 million doses to save time in case it worked.