Governor Greg Abbott issued some revisions to his executive order concerning restrictions because of the COVID pandemic during his press conference on Friday. Later that day Governor Abbott held a phone conference with local county judges including John Gothia of Orange County.
Judge Gothia does not anticipate any major changes in Orange County for at least another week. The only immediate change will be the opening of state parks and county parks like Claiborne West Park in Orange County to visitors. The limitation will be the restriction for groups of not more than five people together and they all must wear a mask. Gothia said he will issue a similar statement for the county parks on Monday.
There were some changes in medical and elected surgeries which does not affect Orange County very much. Gothia pointed out the governor is putting a task force in place to review the data concerning the COVID pandemic. The task force will make recommendations to Abbott by Friday, April 24, concerning other changes to the executive order.
Governor Abbott did announce a few changes to restrictions on retail businesses. Gothia said that those changes will not be significant in Orange County. “We were already there with the restaurants doing pickup orders as some counties had much tighter restrictions than we were, so they will have some relief now, but we were already there,” Gothia explained. “We won’t see a whole lot of changes in our restaurants for at least another week or so.”
Local schools were impacted as they will all be closed for the remainder of the school year. Gothia believes most of the local school districts were on point to do that anyway.
The judge indicated he anticipated some more changes. “He did keep his order in place that all local county government has to follow his order still, so we don’t have a lot of changes that we can make in that with loosening up any less than his, so we’re still going to be following right along with his orders as they are today,” Gothia concluded.
Gothia will be talking with KOGT’s Gary Stelly during Monday’s People in the Know. The interview will air at 7:00 AM.
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