Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the US - Latest State Updates - April 28, 2020

Alabama

As of April 28th

This morning, Governor Kay Ivey announced a Safer At Home order for the state which will go into effect on Thursday, April 30^th at 5 p.m.

Georgia

As of April 28th

Daily State Public Health stats: As of 4:25 p.m. Tuesday, State cases are up to 24,551 confirmed cases as compared to 23,791 Monday afternoon, with 4,778 hospitalized patients as compared to 4,681 Monday afternoon, and 1,020 deaths as compared to 971 Monday afternoon.

The Governor has not made a decision yet as to the shelter in place order that expires Thursday. Either way, the medically fragile population should shelter in place through May 13.

The GA Department of Education is applying this week for more than US$457m in federal subsidies that Congress allotted to schools. Gwinnett is anticipating around US$33m, Fulton nearly US$19m. Schools can use the money for hazard pay, internet service, device purchases, cleaning, counseling, teacher training, etc.

GA is now the 11^th state to reach 1,000 deaths from the virus.

Today is the lowest use of ventilators in GA since data was initiated on April 8. Of 2,846 total ventilators, 1,854 are now available.

The North GA Conference of the United Methodist Church has asked congregations not to gather in-house until June 22.

Through Sunday, more than 825,000 people had returned their absentee ballots.

Local:

Simon Property will reopen nearly 50 malls and outlets across the nation shortly. In GA, they will open this Friday, with hours 11-7 Monday to Saturday and 12-6 on Sundays.

Gwinnett County bus drivers are threatening to stop service Thursday due to alleged unsafe working conditions.

Texas

As of April 27th

Governor Abbott conducted a news conference at 2:30 today in the Texas Capitol, joined by Lt Governor Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, Health Commissioner Dr. John Hellerstedt and others.

Gov. Abbott announced that his previous stay-at-home executive order will expire on April 30^th. He laid out phases for reopening the Texas economy based on advice from doctors and medical experts. He noted that infection rates have been declining for the past 17 days, hospitalization rates remain steady and Texas hospitals have bed and ICU capacity well above the demand.

Abbott issued a report and three new executive orders today dealing with:

Reopening all retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and malls May 1^st subject to restrictions.

Relaxing restrictions on health care professionals and amending requirements on hospital capacity.

Eliminating the mandatory 14-day quarantine period for individuals traveling from Louisiana. (The mandated 14-day quarantine for travelers from the following areas remains in place: California; Connecticut; New York; New Jersey; Washington; Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan, and Miami, Florida.)

PHASING IN RE-OPENINGS Beginning May 1:

All retain, restaurants and movie theaters can open May 1^st, so long as they limit occupancy to no more than 25 percent of capacity. Businesses should make special accommodations to protect the age 65+ population. Recommended distancing and cleaning protocols should be followed.
All licensed health care professionals can return to work. Hospitals must reserve 50 percent of their capacity for COVID patients.
Museums and libraries may open to 25 percent of capacity.
Sole proprietors can get back to work now.
Outdoors sports with up to 4 participants may resume on May 1. (E.g., golf & tennis).
Essential businesses can continue to operate.

For Texas counties with fewer than 5 COVID+ cases, retail, restaurants, movie theaters, museums and libraries can open to 50 percent of capacity starting May 1.

The Governor also announced a statewide testing and tracing program developed by DSHS that will help public health officials quickly identify and test Texans who contract COVID-19 and mitigate further spread of the virus.

Phase II of the reopening plan will begin on or about May 18^th if COVID data supports it. Phase II will allow restaurants, retail and movie theaters to move to 50 percent capacity.

Governor Abbott notes that his work and that of the Reopening Strike Force continues and announcements will be forthcoming for:

Bars, gyms, salons
Summer camps

Governor Abbott also discussed testing and tracing of COVID-19, with a goal to reach 30,000 per day in the near term with rapid turnaround. More than 300 sites across the state are now listed on the state website. At least 17 mobile drive-thru teams have been trained and deployed by the Texas Military Department primarily to serve rural areas.

Texas has a 3 phase testing and tracing plan (see attachments) with 1,157 state and local tracers, a new mobile app and call center up and running now, with plans to expand to 4,000 contact tracers by May 11th

Today’s COVID-19 Texas numbers:

25,297 confirmed cases (5,729 in Harris County/Houston)
663 fatalities
11,170 estimated recovered
290,517 total tested
1,563 currently in TX hospitals

COVID+ cases in 205 of Texas’s 254 counties.

Virginia

As of April 27th

The latest in Virginia, as of Monday, April 27:
Total cases: 13,535
Hospitalizations: 2,066
Deaths: 458

The latest:

The governor has delayed municipal elections from May 5 to May 19 after legislators rejected his proposal last week to move the election to November.
A judge ruled in favor of an indoor shooting range’s injunction against Gov. Ralph Northam’s order that it remain closed during the current state of emergency.
The governor’s plan for a phased reopening Virginia is drawing criticism for lacking a clear timeline or closer coordination with its western neighbors.

Gov. Ralph Northam has exercised his authority under state statute to delay municipal elections by two weeks, to May 19, as part of the state’s continuing effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. The move followed the General Assembly’s rejection of his proposal to postpone municipal elections to November.

Meanwhile, Northam and his administration reiterated plans on Monday for a phased reopening of Virginia’s economy and pushed back against criticism that restrictive measures should be rolled back sooner. The governor has said certain businesses will be allowed to start reopening after the commonwealth increases supplies of personal protective equipment, boosts testing and records a decrease for 14 days in new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. Over the weekend, his administration walked back comments made Friday by the state health commissioner that the initial phase of reopening, which would continue to require social distancing and teleworking, could last two years.

Northam has said he is closely coordinating with officials in Maryland, North Carolina and the District of Columbia on efforts to restart economic activity; Republicans in the state Senate have called on Northam also to coordinate with officials in neighboring Tennessee and Kentucky, which have recently begun to loosen certain restrictions.

Non-essential businesses in Virginia – including indoor recreation and entertainment businesses, hair salons, and barber shops, museums and fitness centers – are under executive order to remain closed until May 8, and a stay-at-home order remains in effect until June 10. Public schools are closed for the rest of the academic year.

Opponents of the governor’s response scored a legal victory on Monday, when a judge in Lynchburg sided with a local gun range and gun-rights advocates, who claimed the governor overstepped his authority in forcing the range to close. Gun-rights advocates said they would push for a broader ruling that applies to other ranges.

Initial unemployment claims in Virginia for the five weeks ending April 18 approached a half million, according to the Virginia Employment Commission. The figure exceeds the average of all initial claims filed in the past three recessions and, while spreading across industries, particularly affected food service and administrative support jobs.

This has led to a disproportionate impact on younger and female workers, according to the commission. The agency has been overwhelmed by the influx of claims and has struggled to expand staffing and resources to accommodate the surge in demand.

Last week, state delegates and senators reconvened in makeshift arrangements to wrap up work on hundreds of bills amended by the governor, including approval of delays to raising the minimum wage and permitting local government employees to unionize. More details on the legislative activity are available here.

Wisconsin

As of April 27th

Updated numbers released on Monday:

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services and the Wisconsin Hospital Association released updated numbers on Monday, of note are the following:

335 Current Hospital Admissions (124 patients in ICU)

Hospital admissions dropped from 343 on Sunday to 335 on Monday (-8)
ICU patients dropped from 141 on Sunday to 124 on Monday (-17)
170 positive test since Sunday’s update on 2,246 tests (7.6% positive tests)
- Cumulatively there have been 61,311 negative test results and 5,911 positive test results (cumulative)

9 deaths reported since Sunday, for a total of 281 deaths from COVID-19 in Wisconsin
2,822 patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 and have recovered

Sources:

Wisconsin Hospital Association (WHA) COVID-19 Situational Awareness Update site
DHS COVID-19: County Data; https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/county.htm

Monday Media Briefing:

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, Department of Health Services (DHS) Secretary-designee Andrea Palm, DHS Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ryan Westergaard, and Ryan Nilsestuen, Chief Legal Counsel held a briefing for the media today.

Of note in the briefing were the following points:

Governor Evers started the media briefing discussing Emergency Order #34, an expansion of the operations of non-essential businesses. More details below, but the order allows for non-essential businesses in the state to provide curbside delivery of products and/or services.
Secretary-designee Palm updated that the Department is putting more data up on the website to be transparent on the information being used for decision-making. Of note in their dashboard is status update on where Wisconsin is at meeting the gating criteria to move into Phase 1 of re-opening the state. https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/prepare.htm

Sec. Palm clarified the 14-day down trajectory is a trended number, not individual days going up or down. They realize there will be some statistical noise as the test impacted areas (e.g. Brown county or a nursing home) and those outbreaks would not be reflective of the whole state.
That being said outbreaks, like in Brown county, were the example that Governor Evers gave for not exploring a regional approach to open Wisconsin’s economy, pointing to how quickly overrun a rural health care infrastructure could be with an outbreak.
The Governor was asked about the Supreme Court race and said he felt confident the court would side with him, and when asked why he believed that had compelling supporting precedent.
Businesses such as hair salons and barbershops are not reopening up under the order because the Administration is still concerned about the close personal contact necessary to perform the service.
When asked why now on “turning the dial” to let some of these other businesses start offering curbside services when there was no demonstratable difference in the number of cases or the Governor’s gating criteria, the Governor said they were following the science.

You can view the briefing here.

Governor Evers responds to Senate Republican Letter

Last week 12 of the 19 Senate Republicans sent Governor Tony Evers requesting answers to 25 questions related to the State of Wisconsin’s response to COVID-19. The questions range from how many people have recovered from the disease to questions to try and understand the science behind the timeline the Governor outlined for reopening the state. They requested a response prior to April 27^th, 2020. Their original letter can be found here.

Governor Evers responded to the letter on Friday and State Senator Van Wanggaard (R-Sturtevant) posted the Governor’s response today.

Senator Wanggaard responded to the letter with the following statement and provided a critique of the letter (here):

“I appreciate the Governor sharing his insights into his decision-making process. It is clear that he has put at least some thought into his decision-making. But Evers response, as far as it goes, shows the frightening results of his decisions.

“It appears that Evers’ is actively thinking about extending Safer at Home into and possibly through the summer at the cost of almost three-quarters of a million people losing their jobs. Given his admission that the length of “Safer-at-Home” has no impact on lessening a substantial peak overwhelming hospitals, substantially extending the “Safer-at-Home” order makes little sense.

“It’s disturbing to know that the Governor apparently realizes that his order is costing four times more jobs than the Great Recession,[iv] and that he is literally doubling down the Safer-at-Home order…” (Complete statement can be found here)

Gov. Evers Announces Expanded Opportunities for Certain Nonessential Businesses

Gov. Tony Evers today announced the another turn of the dial in expanding allowed operations for nonessential businesses, providing even more opportunities for businesses to get back to work in a safe and responsible way.

The Emergency Order, signed today by Wisconsin Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm, allows nonessential businesses to do curbside drop-off of goods and animals. This will allow businesses like dog groomers, small engine repair shops, upholstery businesses, and others to safely open. Today’s order also allows outdoor recreational rentals, such as boats, golf carts, kayaks, ATVs, and other similar recreational vehicles. Additionally, automatic or self-service car washes would be able to operate. All of these businesses must operate free of contact with customers by providing payment options online or over the phone, enact proper disinfecting practices, and operations must be able to be performed by one staff member.

“No one wants to reopen our economy as much as I do, and we’re working to do everything we can to make sure we can do so as soon as we safely and responsibly can. That’s why today we announced a new order that, coupled with our Safer at Home order that went into effect last week, turns the dial a notch by allowing non-essential businesses to do more than they were able to do before,” said Gov. Evers. “This order means that every business across our state can do things like deliveries, mailings, curbside pick-up and drop-off, and it’s an important step in making sure that while folks are staying safer at home, they can also continue to support small businesses across our state.”

Emergency Order #34 is available here and goes into effect at 8 a.m. Wednesday, April 29, 2020. If you have questions regarding Emergency Order #34, please review the frequently asked questions document available here.

Updated Charts

Daily Numbers: