Updated at 2:26 p.m., March 25, 2020: to include Trump’s declaration. Updated at 4:30 p.m., March 23, 2020: to include Abbott’s letter asking that the virus epidemic in Texas be declared a major disaster.

AUSTIN – Two days after Gov. Greg Abbott requested it, President Donald Trump on Wednesday declared that a major disaster exists in Texas because of an outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

Trump ordered federal monetary assistance to supplement state and local recovery efforts in areas affected by COVID-19 beginning on Jan. 20 “and continuing,” said a White House release.

The money will help the state and Texas’ local governments and nonprofits take “emergency protective measures, including direct federal assistance, for all areas” affected by the disease, it said. As Abbott requested, the declaration also freed up federal funds for crisis counseling.

On Monday, the Republican governor asked for the declaration, saying Texas’ response to the virus requires immediate infusions of tens of millions of federal dollars.

In a letter to Trump, Abbott said the current virus-spread “incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments.”

Abbott, perhaps preparing rural residents for more aggressive state actions, highlighted how a lack of personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves for health care workers forced Shackelford County to close its one medical clinic. More closures of rural clinics could come soon, he warned.

In a state with more than 3.6 million residents who are 65 or older — or fitting the description of people most at risk from the virus — Abbott had another dire warning.

“Even a small infected percentage” of a larger population cohort, he said “can be overwhelming.”

While as of Monday the state has 352 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and eight related deaths, the spread may be “inevitable,” despite the state’s taking “strong measures,” he said.

Abbott has received increasing criticism for not heeding some hospital executives’ call for a statewide order banning nonessential travel and telling Texans to shelter in place.

In his letter, necessary to trigger federal aid under the Stafford Act, Abbott spoke of mounting joblessness and disruption of businesses.

Texas food banks will need an additional $73 million of federal money over the next three months to keep pace with growing need, he said.

“Texas is all-in on our response to COVID-19 and we need Washington’s financial assistance as provided for under the law to support our efforts to limit the spread of this virus,” said a release from Abbott’s office.

“COVID-19-related expenses and obligations are already exceeding $50 million and that will only rise as our efforts continue. Additional federal funding is essential for us to maintain our aggressive course of action to protect our state.”

Abbott’s earlier declaration

The request for a major disaster declaration came 10 days after Abbott initially declared a state of disaster over the new coronavirus.

On March 13, simultaneously, he announced that the state that day opened a drive-through testing center in San Antonio, with ones to follow shortly in Dallas, Houston and Austin.

Under state law, in such a disaster, Abbott becomes “commander in chief of state agencies, boards, and commissions having emergency responsibilities."

As he did with the four drive-through testing centers, the governor can direct supplies, equipment, materials and facilities to mitigate the disaster.

“To prioritize protecting of the most vulnerable populations who would be most likely to contract COVID-19,” Abbott said he also is directing state health and correctional agencies to restrict visitation at nursing homes, centers for the intellectually and developmentally disabled, hospitals, day cares, prisons, jails and juvenile lockups. Exceptions would be made, though people would have to “go through proper screening,” for end of life visits, he said.

Abbott also told Texans there is no need to stockpile supplies. For those who may be worried about seeing empty shelves at grocery store, these will be replenished, he said.

“There will be plenty available,” he said, referring to water, food and other supplies. State emergency officials have been in touch with large grocery-store chains, he added.

While on March 13, Abbott didn’t by executive order ban mass gatherings, his health commissioner John Hellerstedt strongly discouraged large meetings as “optional” -- at least until public health officials get a better read on how many Texans have contracted coronavirus disease 2019, as it’s known.

Abbott also asked state agencies to “take any action necessary to facilitate telemedicine,” which allows patients and health-care providers to interact through videoconference.

Also on March 13, he also asked all state agency heads “to consider how to effectively utilize telecommuting,” so state employees can work remotely. State government, though, must continue “ensuring that essential state functions are provided,” he wrote.

Abbott said that as of March 13, 39 people in Texas tested positive for the virus. State health labs revealed, for the first time, that 229 people by then had been tested in public health labs. Abbott, though, said he expects testing capacity to ramp up with commercial labs coming online.

The drive-through testing location in San Antonio, which Abbott said opened March 13, will test only first responders, health care workers, operators of critical infrastructure and certain high-risk patients, he said. He expects drive-through testing in Houston and Dallas to come available within the week, and in Austin soon.

“I expect and anticipate that at least two if not all three of these will be up and running next week or the week after that,” he said.

First step: free state to move faster

In a proclamation, Abbott said, “I do hereby certify that COVID-19 poses an imminent threat of disaster.” He declared a state of disaster for all 254 counties. It will last 30 days unless he renews it.

Abbott’s move lets him target specific areas if needed, speed the machinery of government and begin collecting state and local governments’ costs for possible federal reimbursement. He can waive requirements and move state money around -- such as, say, a transfer of state Medicaid funds from two divisions that handle the program for the poor to, say, Hellerstedt’s health department.

The governor even can seize and use private property, though state compensation would be required.

“No, there are no plans to seize anyone’s private property,” Abbott spokesman John Wittman said late on March 13.

Abbott said the Texas Education Agency was seeking federal waivers to keep free- and reduced-price school meals flowing to low-income kids if the outbreak forces the closure of public schools.

Abbott acted after Dallas County announced five new cases of COVID-19 late on March 12, one of them in a patient who had no recent travel history -- the first sign of “community spread” in the area. Community spread is the term for when people test positive who have not traveled or come into contact with people known to be infected.

Rollback taxing provisions

At the March 13 news conference in his Capitol office’s reception room, Abbott was asked about waiving new state curbs on cities’ and counties’ property-tax revenue growth.

“We’ll have to just take a look at it,” he replied.

While Abbott and aides will look into whether taxing units such as cities and counties could exceed 3.5% rollback rates because of his disaster declaration, the governor said he believed that hospital districts were bearing the brunt of the costs.

Those taxing entities have 8% rollback rates, which means they can raise up to 8% more revenue from property tax than in the previous year without triggering an election. However, county health departments, funded by county governments, are at least initially bearing many of the costs.

While Democratic state lawmakers and labor union leaders have urged the Republican governor and other state leaders to drop their opposition to city ordinances requiring employers to provide paid sick leave and to loosen restrictions on unemployment benefits, those subjects didn’t come up in the half-dozen questions Abbott took before ending the news conference.

Manny Garcia, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said that although Abbott’s declaration was a start, state government “was ill-prepared for this disaster.”

In a written statement, Garcia said Texas GOP leaders need “to expand access to health care.” Testing should be more readily available, he said, and leaders should take “bold actions” to protect Texans’ physical and financial well-being.

Asked if his disaster declaration would affect the May 26 runoff elections, Abbott replied: “Not specifically. It gives us flexibility to address any issue that may come up.”

In response to a question, Abbott said that he, his family and his staff had not been tested for the virus.

He then coughed twice into his fist. Abbott beamed. Hellerstedt, the health commissioner, and Nim Kidd, Texas’ emergency czar, who were seated beside him, chuckled.

Texas' 10 public health laboratories aren’t able to test people who do not have symptoms of COVID-19, state Health Services Commissioner John Hellerstedt (seated at left) said Friday (Julia Robinson / Staff Photographer)

Testing

Before the news conference, Abbott aides privately said they were delighted that Texas would soon have drive-through testing centers. A slow rollout of testing nationally has led to bipartisan criticism of the administration of President Donald Trump.

Before Abbott’s announcement, frustration over a lack of testing in Texas was mounting. With a limited capacity at state public health labs, patients must meet strict criteria to be tested.

Those who are rejected can go to private labs. But doctors must take samples to submit and many can’t get access to masks or other protective gear to avoid infection themselves.

The Texas Department of State Health Services said the government capacity to do testing is around 270 people per day. Still, the state’s public health lab network isn’t able to test people "who do not have symptoms,” said Hellerstedt, the department’s commissioner. The network includes locations in Dallas and Austin.

The risk is real. A Houston-area clinic saw two patients who tested positive after returning from a Nile river cruise. As a result of contact, three doctors and two nurses had to go into 14-day quarantine.

Meanwhile, potentially infected patients are getting conflicting info from doctors and insurers about where to get tested.

Public health officials are telling people to call their primary care doctors. But some clinics are sending patients straight to the ER, where they could put dozens at risk.

While commercial labs are helping to expand testing capacity, the kits are still in short supply. A Dallas-area clinic this week received enough to test two patients a day.

China, where COVID-19 first surfaced in December, has reduced the disease’s spread by creating “fever clinics” and immediately testing people’s blood and scanning them, sending those deemed likely to have the virus straight into stadiums and arenas to wait out their 14-day quarantine period -- not back home, where experts have said most of the transmission occurs.

Asked if Texas officials had considered such drastic actions, Abbott said they were not yet warranted, though the state may have to adjust tactics in coming days and weeks.

“Obviously, with the [low] number of people who have tested positive in Texas right now, there’s no reason for anything like that,” he said of China’s approach.

Under state law, power to quarantine starts at the local level and flows upward. Local health authorities and Hellerstedt, an Abbott appointee, have the power during public health emergencies to use “control measures,” such as detaining and quarantining individuals, to limit spread of communicable diseases.

Violation of a control measure is punishable by up to 180 days in jail and/or $2,000 in fines.

Hellerstedt has sweeping powers to “close areas, to sequester people … to take samples, to close swimming pools or other congregation areas or other places where exposures to infectious and other diseases can occur,” said former state epidemiologist Dennis Perrotta.

“He has all that authority to make those and he shares that with the local health authority,” he said.

Referring to a man who tested positive in the Houston suburbs on Wednesday, Perrotta said, “In Montgomery County, the local health authority is in charge and the Texas Department of State Health Services works with that.” Together, the local and state agencies tap into the best scientific advice from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he said.

Until a specific infectious disease spreads very widely, though, Perrotta doesn’t expect quarantine areas or lockdowns that would impede movement of cars, trucks, buses and light-rail systems.

“The ability of our citizens to move around within the country is a highly held freedom,” he said, and impairing that “would really require a very bad public health emergency.”

The most aggressive action he saw a state take during his decades in public health in Utah and Texas was placement of a Utah woman with “multiply drug-resistant tuberculosis” in mandatory isolation in her home, with sheriff’s deputies making sure she stayed put, he said.

“Because there’s been a case in Montgomery County and they haven’t yet or maybe will never be able to identify where the contact was made doesn’t mean that anything’s changed for El Paso or Dallas or areas throughout the state,” Perrotta said. “Texas is a very large place.”

Mentioning epidemics of recent decades, Abbott on Friday sought to reassure Texans.

“We’re going to make it through this,” he said. “We’ve been through situations like this before,” with SARS, Ebola and H1N1. “We’re going to make it through this together as well.”