Order by governor sets stage for 'reopening Texas businesses'

FPI / April 13, 2020

Gov. Greg Abbott said Texas will soon be re-opening businesses that have been shuttered amid the coronavirus crisis.

During a Friday press conference, Abbott said: “Next week, I will be providing an executive order talking about what will be done in Texas about re-opening Texas businesses,” adding that economic activity can resume “in a way that will be safe for that economic revitalization.”

“We will focus on protecting lives while restoring livelihoods. We can and we must do this,” said Abbott.

On March 19, Abbott issued an order to close schools, restaurants, bars, and gyms to limit the spread of COVID-19.

“Working together, we must defeat COVID-19 with the only tool that we have available to us. We must strangle its expansion by reducing the ways that we are currently transmitting it,” Abbott said then. “We are doing this now, today, so that we can get back to business as usual more quickly.”

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump is telling advisers he wants Americans to return to work by May 1.

The Trump administration's current social-distancing guidelines in response to the coronavirus outbreak are scheduled to expire on April 30.

Attorney General William Barr, in an interview Thursday with Fox New host Laura Ingraham, called for the "draconian" restrictions to be lifted by May 1.

"We have to be very careful to make sure this, that the draconian measures that are being adopted are fully justified, and there are not alternative ways of protecting people," Barr said.

Barr said he trusts the American people to adhere to social-distancing guidelines on their own.

"When this period of time at the end of April expires, I think we have to allow people to adapt more than we have, and not just tell people to go home and hide under the bed," Barr said.

In recent weeks, 17 million people who have filed for unemployment, surpassing the total during the recession of 2008.

At the White House coronavirus briefing on Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence said the president wants to reopen the country as soon as possible.

"I think most of America knows that no one wants to reopen America more than President Donald Trump," he said. "But the president has told us we need to do it responsibly, and we're going to follow the data."

Free Press International