Name: Hidalgo orders Harris County businesses require customers wear masks
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Hidalgo orders Harris County businesses require customers wear masks

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateUPDATE (8:33 a.m., June 22): As of Monday morning, Lina Hidalgo's new mask order is now in effect for Harris County. The order officially expires June 30, though Hidalgo hinted she'd seek an extension.ORIGINAL STORY: Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo issued an order Friday mandating that businesses require customers to wear masks, her latest effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.She and other county leaders increasingly are worried about a surge in COVID-19 cases since Memorial Day, which has resulted in eight straight days of record hospitalizations in Harris County. Hidalgo framed the mask rules as a common-sense complement to social distancing that empowers business to protect patrons.“The idea is to see this as no shirt, no shoes, no mask, no service,” Hidalgo said at a news conference. “It gives people an understanding of what to expect when they go into an establishment.”Her order to face-covering rules issued by Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff earlier this week and will go into effect Monday. It expires June 30, though Hidalgo hinted she likely would seek an extension.It requires all customers 10 and older to wear a face covering inside businesses; employees who work at a business where distancing from others is impossible also are required to wear a mask. Exceptions include eating at a restaurant, pumping gas, visiting a bank or anytime wearing a mask poses a health risk.Gov. Greg Abbott effectively gutted Hidalgo’s to require masks in late April, when he prohibited cities and counties from punishing residents for noncompliance. Hidalgo’s original order on April 22 included potential fines of $1,000.Abbott’s executive orders reopening Texas beginning May 1 left local leaders across the state with the impression that they lacked the authority to require masks. The governor surprised political observers Wednesday when he endorsed Bexar County’s proposal, adding that cities and counties always had the ability to do so.The crucial difference, the governor said, was that Bexar County’s order applies to businesses rather than individuals.Hidalgo’s latest order includes a $1,000 penalty for violators, though she said Harris County law enforcement will not issue fines at present because she is unclear if Abbott has signaled cities and counties may do so. A spokesman for the governor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Mayor Sylvester Turner was one of nine executives of Texas cities to sign a letter to Abbott on Tuesday urging the governor to order residents to wear masks or let local leaders do so themselves. Turner said he would direct police to hand out masks instead of tickets, as they had .Turner praised Hidalgo’s order and noted the troubling rise in cases, including a new batch of 972 infections in Houston alone he announced from the lectern. Most of those were the results of tests conducted June 5 to June 10, he said.“Toward the end of April and the first couple weeks of May, we flattened the curve and the numbers were headed in the right direction,” Turner said. “Now, the numbers are starting to tick up, and so we’re encouraging people, at the very minimum, to mask up.”Greater Houston Partnership CEO Bob Harvey joined the leaders to announce that the business community supported the mask rules.Hidalgo also said she suspected some critics would lampoon the mask order, much as several criticized her original attempt or when a restaurant of her stay-at-home order. She urged businesses and residents to comply voluntarily.“Those that try and score political points, I am not going to give them time in the limelight,” she said. “They can go make noise on their own.”Local and statewide leaders are under pressure to contain the pandemic. While the Northeast and West Coast initially were hit harder when the pandemic reached the United States, Texas was one of several states to report a record number of cases and hospitalizations this week.Harris County, the state’s most populous, is a major driver of this trend. Though thousands of hospital beds remain available statewide, local COVID-19 hospitalizations have more than doubled since Memorial Day, to 1,182. That helped push the usage of intensive care units this week to 93 percent, the highest level during the pandemic.The situation at Harris County’s two public hospitals is particularly dire: The ICU at Lyndon B. Johnson reached 120 percent on Friday. About a third were COVID-19 patients.“LBJ is at a breaking point right now,” Harris Health CEO Dr. Esmaeil Porsa said Wednesday. “What that means is the next people that are coming to the hospital that need beds will either have to stay at the emergency room until there are beds available or we’ll have to transfer them to another hospital.”Eight days have passed since Hidalgo unveiled a to help residents easily understand the severity of the pandemic. She initially placed the county at Level 2, the second-most serious, and laid out criteria for the others.As of Friday, Harris County met zero of the four benchmarks suggested to move down to Level 3, including a 14-day decline in new cases and hospitalizations. The county, in contrast, does meet four of the five criteria to upgrade to Level 1, including seven-day increases in hospitalizations, cases and ICU usage.The only encouraging sign is a greater than 30-day supply of personal protective equipment available for health care workers.Level 1, defined by the health department as a worsening outbreak accompanied by a surge in hospitalizations, calls for a return to the stay-at-home conditions of . Unlike earlier, however, Hidalgo lacks the ability to issue a stay-at-home order, since Abbott took control of the state’s reopening beginning in May.Contiguous counties have yet to follow Hidalgo’s lead. To enter Chambers County buildings, including libraries, visitors must wear a mask and have their temperature checked. Samantha Humphrey, the county’s public information officer, said “there are no discussions” to expand that to businesses.Brazoria County Judge Matt Sebesta said he does not expect to issue any mask orders.“I am going to leave that up to the individual mayors to handle the situation within their city,” Sebesta said.Unlike Harris County, where roughly half the population lives in Houston, Sebesta said Brazoria County has large pockets of unincorporated area and nearly 20 cities, some of which have never reported a positive COVID-19 case. Most businesses that cater to customers walking in, such as restaurants and shops, are within city limits, he said.Just three of the county’s 1,500 employees have tested positive.He said what he supports is people “not losing focus.”“If you go into a business and you don’t feel comfortable, then do not give them your business, and tell them why,” Sebesta said.Jordan Rubio and Dug Begley contributed to this report.zach.despart@chron.com

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateUPDATE (8:33 a.m., June 22): As of Monday morning, Lina Hidalgo's new mask order is now in effect for Harris County. The order officially expires June 30, though Hidalgo hinted she'd seek an extension.ORIGINAL STORY: Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo issued an order Friday mandating that businesses require customers to wear masks, her latest effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.She and other county leaders increasingly are worried about a surge in COVID-19 cases since Memorial Day, which has resulted in eight straight...

Hidalgo orders Harris County businesses require customers wear masks

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