Texas Governor on Reopening: 'It's Time to Set a New Course'

Friday's the day for Texas. That's the day after its stay-at-home order expires, and when Gov. Greg Abbott says venues such as restaurants, movie theaters, malls, museums, retail stores, and libraries may reopen, though at 25% of their usual capacity, report the Texas Tribune and Dallas Morning News. Abbott hopes to open other businesses like bars, gyms, hair salons, tattoo parlors, and bowling alleys "on or no later than mid-May." "It's time to set a new course, a course that responsibly opens up business in Texas," he said at a Monday presser. This is all despite critics saying Texas still isn't up to speed on such crucial things as tests for COVID-19; the Tribune notes only about 1% of the state's population has had one. Meanwhile, other states are also starting incremental reopenings, as several see their own stay-at-home orders about to expire, per the New York Times.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who described his state Monday as "five states in one," said he'd begin to reopen the Sunshine State in "baby steps," in a "methodical, slow, and data-driven" way that could differ in each part of the state, NBC Miami reports. Other states moving ahead with reopening include Ohio, Colorado, Tennessee, and Missouri. Meanwhile, with the total number of US virus cases creeping up on 1 million, and the death toll as of Tuesday at just over 56,000, health experts are still concerned states may be doing too much, too quickly. "There's a belief that ... we're out of the woods. That is completely not the case," a Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security scholar tells the Times. "They've seen a decline in the sickest patients, but there's a lot of infection that can spread silently, and suddenly you're back where you started." Here's where all 50 states stand on reopening. (More Texas stories.)