Coronavirus updates in Texas: Three people in Tyler test positive; San Antonio confirms first travel-related case

Friday’s biggest developments:

• Abbott says Texas is on verge of ramping up testing capacity
• Three people in Tyler have tested positive for the new coronavirus
• Bell County identifies positive coronavirus case
• San Antonio announces its first travel-related coronavirus case; Fiesta San Antonio postponed
• Two people in Austin test positive for coronavirus, the first reported cases in Central Texas
• Dallas County officials: Community spread has occurred in North Texas

Abbott says Texas is on verge of ramping up testing capacity

[12:55] Declaring the new coronavirus a statewide public health disaster, Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday that Texas is on the verge of ramping up its testing capacity.

In a press conference Friday, Abbott also said that he was directing day cares, nursing homes and prisons to limit visitations. He also said San Antonio is opening the state’s first drive-through with testing capabilities, initially prioritizing health care workers and high-risk patients.

Abbott added that there have been 220 Texans tested by either a state public lab or by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another 75 Texans are being tested currently. On Friday, the state’s testing capacity was 272 people per day, but he said next week that capacity will expand into the thousands. — Edgar Walters

Three people in Tyler test positive for new coronavirus

[10:50 a.m.] Three people in Tyler have tested positive for the new coronavirus, the city announced Friday morning.

According to East Texas Matters, one of the three patients is in critical condition.

With Friday’s latest cases, there are now four confirmed cases of COVID-19 in East Texas. Earlier this week, a man in Gregg County, east of Dallas, tested positive for the respiratory virus, according to The Longview News-Journal. The Northeast Texas Public Health District reported that the patient traveled domestically, has mild symptoms and is self-quarantining at home.

According to Tyler city spokeswoman Jenny Wells, the immediate risk of transmission in Smith County remains low. There is no evidence of community spread at this time. — Alex Samuels

Fiesta San Antonio postponed until November

[10:40 a.m.] Fiesta San Antonio has been postponed to the fall, event organizers announced Friday morning.

The city’s signature event was scheduled to take place April 16-26. It will now take place Nov. 5-15, Jeanie Travis, president of the Fiesta San Antonio Commission, said at a press conference.

The postponement came less than an hour after San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg confirmed the city’s first travel-related case of COVID-19 and issued a declaration of public health emergency prohibiting large gatherings of 500 people or more.

A cancellation could be devastating: A 2017 study found that Fiesta supported 3,464 full-time-equivalent local jobs, mobilized 75,000 volunteers, contributed $340 million in sales to the local economy and attracted 2.5 million attendees.

“For almost 130 years our citizens and visitors have enjoyed this glorious celebration, except during World War I and World War II,” Travis said. “We have concluded that the tradition must continue but on different dates.”

Tickets already purchased for the 2020 event will be honored, organizers said. — Sami Sparber

San Antonio confirms its first travel-related coronavirus case

[10:15 a.m.] The City of San Antonio confirmed the first travel-related case of COVID-19 in the city on Friday. It is also the first case in San Antonio unrelated to the 11 others in Lackland Air Force Base.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg also issued a public health emergency declaration, prohibiting gatherings of 500 people or more.

At a press conference Friday, Metropolitan Health District director Dawn Emerick said the case does not indicate community spread. The patient is in quarantine with family and is in stable condition. The patient tested positive yesterday night after showing symptoms for a month.

The city is conducting an “extensive” investigation into the patient’s history and said further updates will be released periodically, Emerick said. “We’ve been preparing for this for weeks,” Emerick said. “We have to stay the course.”

Emerick also announced the city will be loosening local testing criteria to make tests more accessible. The new criteria is expected to be released later Friday. — Raga Justin

Bell County identifies positive coronavirus case

[9:15 a.m.] Bell County identified its first case of a person testing positive for COVID-19 late Thursday night, officials said Friday morning.

The individual is a 29-year-old man with a travel history in Barcelona and Paris from March 4-10, officials said in a press release. The county health department has initiated self-isolation protocol and contact tracing for this case, which is in the process of undergoing confirmatory testing with the CDC, officials said. — Sami Sparber

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz extends self-quarantine

[8:45 a.m.] U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has extended his self-quarantine to March 17 after learning he interacted with a second person who has since tested positive for the new coronavirus.

In a statement released Friday, Cruz said that on March 3, a Spanish official visited his Washington office, where the two had a roughly 20-minute meeting, shook hands and took photos together.

Cruz said he was informed Thursday night — the date his first self-quarantine ended — of the official testing positive for COVID-19.

“I’m still not feeling any symptoms,” Cruz said in his statement, adding that he had decided to extend the self-quarantine for the same reasons he did it the first time — “out of an abundance of caution and to give everyone peace of mind.” — Cassandra Pollock

Collin County sheriff suggests avoiding arrests for nonviolent crimes

[8:30 a.m.] In an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Collin County Sheriff Jim Skinner has asked police departments to keep petty criminals out of jail. He directed officers to cite and release some people who commit nonviolent crimes instead of arresting them, The Dallas Morning News reported Thursday. — Emma Platoff

Two in Austin test positive; UT and Austin schools close for the day

[8:01 a.m.] Two people in Austin tested positive for the new coronavirus, officials announced Friday morning, marking the first cases in Central Texas to be confirmed. At a news conference Friday, an official said the two cases are not related to each other. One patient is a woman in her 30s believed to have caught the disease from a Houston-area coronavirus patient.

The other patient is a man in his 60s who is critically ill. He was diagnosed in an Austin-area hospital after being transferred from a rural region of the state.

Officials said that neither case is believed to be community spread, meaning the illness did not come from an unknown infected person.

After the announcement from the city, the Austin Independent School District said that schools and offices would be closed Friday. After initially saying it would remain open Friday, the University of Texas at Austin announced later Friday morning that it would be canceling operations and classes for the day, tweeting that “essential personnel only should work today.” — Regina Mack

Dallas County officials: Community spread has occurred in North Texas

[6:15 a.m.] Five more people in Dallas County have tested positive for the new coronavirus — and that one of them had no recent travel history, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said late Thursday.

Officials there declared a local disaster and have set restrictions on gatherings that will go into effect at 11 a.m. Friday. Gatherings of 500 people or more will be prohibited, but officials said Thursday that they strongly recommend local residents to generally avoid large gatherings and practice social distancing throughout the county. The order runs through March 20.

“We have community spread, and now it is incumbent on us to do everything that we can to keep that from accelerating,” Jenkins said. — Alexa Ura

Governor, health commissioner and emergency chief to discuss coronavirus response

[5:00 a.m.] Gov. Greg Abbott is scheduled to discuss how the state is combating coronavirus at a noon press conference in Austin.

His comments will come as that state enters an unprecedented period of school district closures, event cancellations and official suggestions that Texans practice social distance amid the growing number of COVID-19 cases, including the first instances of community spread in the state’s two largest urban areas.

Abbott will be joined by Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd and Texas Department of State Health Services Commissioner Dr. John Hellerstedt.

Texas officials have yet to say how many Texans have been tested

[5:00 a.m.] Now that Texas health officials have identified two suspected cases of community spread, in Montgomery and Dallas counties, scrutiny of the state’s limited coronavirus testing network is fiercer than ever. Three state lawmakers said Gov. Greg Abbott told them that 104 people were being tested or monitored for the virus, but a Texas Department of State Health Services spokesman said he could not “confirm that number.”

While a lack of testing has been a nationwide issue, Texas’ limited disclosures about the scope of its efforts stand in stark contrast to those of several other states. Unless a patient is sick enough to be hospitalized, state criteria for lab testing is difficult to meet — even for health care workers. — Edgar Walters

As cancellations mount and social distancing sets in, Texans worried about economic impact

[5:00 a.m.] Economists say it’s too soon to tell the full financial impact coronavirus will have on individual Texans, on regions with higher concentrations of the virus or on the state economy as a whole. Many business owners have already started to feel the pinch. And as travel restrictions, prohibitions on large events and numerous school district closures snowball across the state, it’s becoming clear that Texans may just now be on the front end of major disruptions that could rattle businesses even further. — Mitchell Ferman

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