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Mayor Ron Nirenberg warned Sunday he would close the city’s parks if people did not stop gathering in them, and said the community should not be lulled into lowering its guard against the spread of COVID-19 just because it has caused no deaths here for three days.

“We have observed congregating in our public parks this weekend,” Nirenberg said at his evening news conference. “That’s not good. It’s not allowed. You should get out and get fresh air , but congregating in parks or anywhere else is not permitted. If you do not implement social distancing, we will be forced to dictate stricter measures, such as closing our parks.”

Nirenberg said 17 new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, had been identified locally, bringing the total to 157. Five persons have died. Of the 35 people who remain hospitalized, 12 are in intensive care units and 11 are on life-saving ventilators, Nirenberg said.

Of the confirmed cases, 39 percent are travel-related and 35 percent are from “community transmission,” meaning it’s unclear how the patient was infected. Another 13 percent are the result of close contact with someone known to be infected.

Nirenberg said the numbers are sure to go up, citing a lag of three to five days in getting results from federal labs.

“We are warning the public that we are going to see a spike in cases and infections,” he said. “In terms of the overall number of deaths, or really, the pace of the infection rate right now, I don’t think we can read too much into it.”

As the city and Bexar County receive more data, they can plan for that surge, Nirenberg said, confirming that a pop-up treatment center is in the works, to be located at Freeman Coliseum.

“Hopefully, we will not need it,” Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said.

Since one minute before midnight Wednesday, when the city and county enacted shelter-in-place orders, the San Antonio Police Department’s non-emergency line has received 670 calls reporting non-essential businesses still open, Nirenberg said. Police identified 476 violations, but all the business owners agreed to comply with the order when contacted, resulting in no citations.

Hours earlier, Gov. Greg Abbott said the state’s first pop-up hospital will be at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas. The state and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are looking at facilities in San Antonio and other areas of the state for similar centers, Abbott said.

In a news conference, Abbott also announced an executive order to increase restrictions on people entering Texas, adding air travelers from several cities and states and people arriving by road from anywhere in Louisiana to the list of those who must self-quarantine for 14 days.

Abbott said it was necessary to reduce the possibility of importing COVID-19. The Texas Department of Public Safety will stop road travelers from Louisiana at or near entry points and order them to self-quarantine. The order does not include travel for commercial, military, emergency response, health response, or critical infrastructure purposes.

It requires air travelers arriving from Miami, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, California and Washington state to self-quarantine. That rule had been in place since Thursday for those flying in from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or New Orleans.

Abbott also enacted an executive order Sunday to prevent the release of certain inmates from jails.

“Releasing dangerous criminals from jails into the streets makes the state even less safe and complicates and slows our ability to respond to the disaster caused by COVID-19,” he said.

The order suspends personal recognizance bond laws to the extent necessary to prevent anyone convicted or arrested on charges involving physical violence, or the threat of physical violence, from being released on such bonds. It also prevents jails from commuting the sentences of inmates convicted of such crimes for good conduct, or from releasing them to an electronic monitoring program. Judges can still consider individual releases for health or medical reasons.

Earlier Sunday, Abbott reported no new coronavirus-related deaths in Texas. He said 2,552 people in the state have tested positive for the virus, an increase of 31 from Saturday. Of those who tested positive, 176 have been hospitalized, he said.

The Texas National Guard has deployed three joint task force brigades, Maj. Gen. Tracy R. Norris said, and engineering assessment teams are working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Guard’s missions include control and logistics measures, communications for response operations, medical support such as drive-through testing, expanding hospital capacity and providing equipment when possible.

“You will begin to see personnel in your communities,” Norris said.

Alia Malik covers several school districts and the University of Texas at San Antonio. To read more from Alia, become a subscriber. amalik@express-news.net | Twitter: @AliaAtSAEN