Gov. Greg Abbott stops short of shelter-in-place order.

Gov. Greg Abbott took multiple measures Sunday designed to expand hospital staffing and capacity, but declined to issue a statewide shelter-in-place order — even as calls for such an action increased as the new coronavirus continued to spread across the state.

In an effort to free up hospital beds in anticipation of an influx of patients sick with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Abbott ordered health care professionals to postpone "all surgeries that are not medically necessary" and suspended regulations to allow hospitals to treat more than one patient in a room.

But he did not order all Texans to shelter in place, noting that there are still many counties in Texas where no cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed. He noted Sunday that less than 48 hours had passed since he issued an executive order that urged all Texans to limit public gatherings to 10 people, prohibited eating in at restaurants and bars and temporarily closed schools. That order went into effect midnight Friday and goes through midnight April 3.

Officials in some of the hardest-hit parts of the state had been calling for Abbott to make the move. A group of North Texas officials, including the mayors of Dallas and Fort Worth, sent Abbott a letter Saturday asking him to “consider mandatory shelter-in-place orders” statewide. The officials were joined by several health care executives.




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