Texas’ stay at home order in response to COVID-19 expired April 30 and a phased “reopen” begins. What was to happen then? Although the state’s edict overrules local policy on this issue, many community leaders across the state were likely to ask residents and businesses to observe some practices voluntarily. What leaders asked with regard to COVID-19 varied across communities up to this report release, and that was unlikely to change. Any community leader’s ask may or may not have been based on what we know about how to reopen more safely, like whether cases were steadily declining, whether we had enough testing and contact tracing, and whether hospitals could handle a spike in seriously ill patients.
Our lives are connected across county lines, though, including through our jobs. At the moment, no Texas county could do the level of testing and contact tracing it needed. Until every county can, infection in one community is certain to spread to another.
Our infographic shows the number and percent of each county’s jobs that are filled by workers who live outside that county.
