Dallas and Tarrant counties receive letter from state outlining action plan to reopen

Dallas and Tarrant counties received a letter from Texas Health and Human Services advising them of the action plan to reopen the rollbacks.

It comes after Trauma Service Area E, which represents 19 North Texas counties, had seven consecutive days of COVID-19 patients occupying more than 15% of available hospital beds.

The TSA-E Hospital area includes: Collin, Cooke, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Erath, Fannin, Grayson, Hood, Hunt, Johnson, Kaufman, Navarro, Palo Pinto, Parker, Rockwall, Somervell, Tarrant counties and Wise.

The letter describes the reopening cancellations of Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order that are due to take effect on Saturday after COVID-19-related hospitalizations exceed the set threshold.

Restaurants, retail stores and gyms must reduce capacity to 50% and bars must close.

Hospitals have also been ordered to stop elective surgeries. But some hospitals in North Texas are continuing these surgeries, as the order maintains that elective surgeries are allowed if it “does not exhaust hospital capacity needed to cope with the COVID-19 disaster.”

These cancellations of state-imposed restrictions will now last until the hospitalization rate in North Texas falls below 15% for seven consecutive days.

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