Texas’ Abbott calls state’s recent surge in COVID-19 cases ‘unacceptable’

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Gov. Greg Abbott says Texas is responding to rising coronavirus numbers by increasing enforcement of protocols

We are responding in ways that should reduce the spread of COVID-19 without having to ratchet back the reopening of Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott tells Martha MacCallum on 'The Story.'

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday called the state’s recent surge in coronavirus cases “unacceptable” and called on residents to wear masks and take appropriate precautions before going out in public.

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“Closing down Texas again will be the last option,” the Republican said, according to FOX 4 of Dallas. The report said that there have been about 115,000 cases across the state, with a daily average of more than 3,500 new cases.

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"If those spikes continue, additional measures are going to have to be taken,” Abbott said. “There's been pretty much a doubling of those numbers. If there continues to be a doubling, that would mean we are in an urgent" situation."

States across the country have reported increases since the country’s slow reopening. President Trump was criticized after telling a Tulsa, Okla., rally last weekend that he was going to ask his team to cut back on testing due to the uptick.

"Our Coronavirus testing is so much greater (25 million tests) and so much more advanced, that it makes us look like we have more cases, especially proportionally, than other countries," Trump tweeted.

The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that, despite an increase in cases in California, health officials are not ringing the alarm bells. These officials say new cases is not the best metric to monitor the dangers of the disease, and look to hospitalizations and deaths.

“The most important data continues to be looking at our death data and our hospitalization data and our rate of positivity, and ... all of the indicators really point to the fact that we are fairly stable and that we in fact continue to slow the spread of COVID-19,” Barbara Ferrer, the Los Angeles County health director told the paper on Friday.

Dr. Julie Trivedi, the medical director of infection prevention at UT Southwestern Medical Center, told FOX 4 that she is concerned about the risk of overwhelming state hospitals.

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“The whole goal of flattening the curve wasn’t to prevent people from becoming infected. It was to slow down the rate at which they do so we don’t overwhelm our healthcare systems, and I think that that is a key thing to stay focused about,” she said.