MOCO9 said:

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Montgomery County judge says he won't issue stay-at-home orders

While county leaders around the state are issuing stay-at-home orders as COVID-19 cases climb, County Judge Mark Keough said Tuesday he will not implement similar orders for Montgomery County.

As Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo hosted a press conference to announce a stay at home order, Keough released a statement that he would not follow her lead.

"I believe they mean well and I believe they are trying to do the right thing for their people, but the fact of the matter is they have so many exemptions in (their order) that we have already allowed for," Keough said, referencing an order he signed March 18. "To add additional orders on top of that to restrict us in more of our freedom (is) not what we are doing in Montgomery County."

In the March 18 order, all restaurants must cease all onsite dining operations but may continue to-go, takeout, delivery and catering operations. Additionally, all bars, clubs, gyms, movie theaters and amusement type businesses must cease all operations.

The order cancels any event sponsored or permitted by Montgomery County and events greater than 10 people at public facilities. Keough urged events greater than 10 people at private facilities to cease operations as well.

Retail stores, private businesses, clubs or civic organizations and religious organizations to include churches, synagogues, mosques or other places of worship are urged to comply with the CDC guidelines related to 10 persons gathering in any one place or at one time.

Retail stores who sell groceries or medical supplies are exempt from the order.

The order is in effect through April 3.

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Insert Terrell Owens "That's My Judge" gif

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Stay at home order entered in Montgomery County

CDUB98 said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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This idea that if we go a few more weeks of this that the entire economy may collapse is typically being put forth by those looking at their 401k and/or who are feeling the pinch in their specific industry.

Yes many people's portfolios will be hit hard. Yes many people will lose their jobs. Yes many people will have to adjust their lifestyle.

But we were just in one of the most thriving economic times in our history -- the margin between "I can't afford the mortgage on our lake house" and "great depression level hurt" is more than a few weeks.

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Your personal position does not apply to everyone else.

hth

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Very true.

Will things suck for a lot of people? Absolutely. A lot of people will lose jobs, a lot of places will go out of business.

But you know what? On April 10th if we're still sheltering-in-place, I have a feeling we wont be lining up for our butter and eggs rations.

On April 10th I bet I'll still be able to order a burrito from Chipotle.

Your personal position does not apply to the entire economy as a whole.

Ranger #007 said:

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Chipotle? Gross.

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I wouldn't set foot in the Freebirds around here before all of this, no chance I do now. Still love their burritos, but the place has smelled like sewage inside for years.

They can't even remember what kind of beans I wanted even though they asked me just 10 seconds ago -- I definitely don't trust they are washing their hands regularly.

Just adds to the flavor.

Proposition Joe said:

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CDUB98 said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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This idea that if we go a few more weeks of this that the entire economy may collapse is typically being put forth by those looking at their 401k and/or who are feeling the pinch in their specific industry.

Yes many people's portfolios will be hit hard. Yes many people will lose their jobs. Yes many people will have to adjust their lifestyle.

But we were just in one of the most thriving economic times in our history -- the margin between "I can't afford the mortgage on our lake house" and "great depression level hurt" is more than a few weeks.

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Your personal position does not apply to everyone else.

hth

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Very true.

Will things suck for a lot of people? Absolutely. A lot of people will lose jobs, a lot of places will go out of business.

But you know what? On April 10th if we're still sheltering-in-place, I have a feeling we wont be lining up for our butter and eggs rations.

On April 10th I bet I'll still be able to order a burrito from Chipotle.

Your personal position does not apply to the entire economy as a whole.

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1) You got bad taste in food, man.

2) My personal position isn't sucking either, thankfully.

You are correct in that we won't be lining up for rations anytime soon, but I do believe you overestimate the ability to bounce back. However, is it reasonable to call all the gov't checks today's form of rations rather than lining up at a gov't shop?

The fear myself, and the others you are countering, is the spiraling effect. It's not impossible. But, can anyone truly answer the probability? Doubtful.

The aforementioned tertiary effects are my largest concern.

@#!$!#%, nm

I dislike the new way TexAgs has structured the mobile site.

CDUB98 said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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CDUB98 said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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This idea that if we go a few more weeks of this that the entire economy may collapse is typically being put forth by those looking at their 401k and/or who are feeling the pinch in their specific industry.

Yes many people's portfolios will be hit hard. Yes many people will lose their jobs. Yes many people will have to adjust their lifestyle.

But we were just in one of the most thriving economic times in our history -- the margin between "I can't afford the mortgage on our lake house" and "great depression level hurt" is more than a few weeks.

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Your personal position does not apply to everyone else.

hth

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Very true.

Will things suck for a lot of people? Absolutely. A lot of people will lose jobs, a lot of places will go out of business.

But you know what? On April 10th if we're still sheltering-in-place, I have a feeling we wont be lining up for our butter and eggs rations.

On April 10th I bet I'll still be able to order a burrito from Chipotle.

Your personal position does not apply to the entire economy as a whole.

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1) You got bad taste in food, man.

2) My personal position isn't sucking either, thankfully.

You are correct in that we won't be lining up for rations anytime soon, but I do believe you overestimate the ability to bounce back. However, is it reasonable to call all the gov't checks today's form of rations rather than lining up at a gov't shop?

The fear myself, and the others you are countering, is the spiraling effect. It's not impossible. But, can anyone truly answer the probability? Doubtful.

The aforementioned tertiary effects are my largest concern.

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I'm not saying we'll bounce back anytime soon (if at all). A lot of industries are really going to be hurting for the next 12 months unless some miraculous cure rears it's head.

I just don't think we're at the point some feel we're at that "2 more weeks of this and our economy is doomed!"

2 more weeks of this isn't going to hurt the economy significantly more than it already has, so if 2 more weeks buys our health care system some needed time then we will manage.

Now, if you start talking 2 months then I won't argue that the cure might be worse than the disease. But right now it seems like some people are treating 2 weeks like it's asking the world, and I feel like those people are mainly concerned about their own personal financial situation than the country's as a whole. Which is natural, no doubt... but let's call a spade a spade.

Maybe we're not too far off from each other.

In a nutshell, my belief is that the longer the shutdown, the longer the pain and recovery.

It seems you may agree with that, but we differ on severity timing.

To further that point - maybe our economy is in need of a contraction and then bounce back, but not a bounce back to the levels where we are now.

There has been a lot of talk the last couple of years about the stock market being artificially inflated. Maybe something similar applies to our economy. Do we really believe that a Starbucks, mattress store, and massage parlor on every block is sustainable indefinitely?

Maybe it's because of the industry I'm in, but when oil hit $100+ a barrel, a lot of companies spent money like that was going to be the price indefinitely. And those companies learned a very hard lesson when a few years later, it dropped back to $50.

Now, oil at $20 a barrel is bad for everyone, but I have no doubt it will get back up to $50. I don't expect it to be back to $100 again anytime soon, but that's not a bad thing, either. Somewhere in between those two extremes you have to find a balance.

Maybe our economy needs to learn a similar lesson.

I think the challenge here is what to optimize for. We've obviously chosen to optimize the response in favor of public health at the expense of business so far. You keep with social distancing and this drags our from anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. The other option would be to encourage mass gatherings to accelerate the spread, end up like northern Italy for a few weeks, and hope for herd immunity for everyone that lived. The problem with a partial reopening would potentially be that you wouldn't shorten the duration, and you still run a high risk of overwhelming the health care system leaving you with the worst of both more extreme options.

CDUB98 said:

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Maybe we're not too far off from each other.

In a nutshell, my belief is that the longer the shutdown, the longer the pain and recovery.

It seems you may agree with that, but we differ on severity timing.

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Yeah, we agree on that. My case for 2 weeks being different than 2 months is in 2 weeks I think we will have a true handle on exactly what we're dealing with here in Texas (and consequently much of the country). If the projections look to be right, we're about to see Louisiana and possibly Michigan explode by end of next week, and then after that Texas' turn will be up.

I think by the end of that 2 weeks we're either gonna know:

A) Social distancing really did help things significantly and we work on shifting back to normal with "new normals" regarding social distancing (% of capacity, people wearing masks, etc...)

or

B) Things have spiraled out of control and we're a major hotspot and returning to normal would be devastating to our health care system.


Rolling the dice right now and saying "the cure is worse than the disease" is doing so without actually having seen what the disease is going to look like here.

Sorry man. No links, but my wife's whole family lives there so we're getting first hand info. Two of the positive folks are extended family so it's pretty scary right now.

Feel free to PM me and I would be happy to try and answer any questions I can.

An update on testing in Montgomery Co:

Montgomery County COVID-19 Cases
Montgomery County Public Health District, in conjunction with Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management, can confirm Montgomery County now has 47 positive cases of COVID-19, an increase of 6 from yesterday. As of 3 p.m. today, there are 314 negative results and 174 pending tests.

So, they've tested a total of 535 people in a county with a population of 600k+. That's 0.09% of the population.

TXTransplant said:

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An update on testing in Montgomery Co:

Montgomery County COVID-19 Cases
Montgomery County Public Health District, in conjunction with Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management, can confirm Montgomery County now has 47 positive cases of COVID-19, an increase of 6 from yesterday. As of 3 p.m. today, there are 314 negative results and 174 pending tests.

So, they've tested a total of 535 people in a county with a population of 600k+. That's 0.09% of the population.

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Monty looked wide open yesterday compared to Harris. Not surprised. Monty doesn't care about no stinking rules.

94chem said:

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TXTransplant said:

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An update on testing in Montgomery Co:

Montgomery County COVID-19 Cases
Montgomery County Public Health District, in conjunction with Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management, can confirm Montgomery County now has 47 positive cases of COVID-19, an increase of 6 from yesterday. As of 3 p.m. today, there are 314 negative results and 174 pending tests.

So, they've tested a total of 535 people in a county with a population of 600k+. That's 0.09% of the population.

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Monty looked wide open yesterday compared to Harris. Not surprised. Monty doesn't care about no stinking rules.

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County judge issued a stay at home order that closed the last of the "non-essential" businesses the other day. But, yeah, The Woodlands Mall was still open a couple of days ago.

Bregxit said:

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TXTransplant said:

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94chem said:

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TXTransplant said:

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An update on testing in Montgomery Co:

Montgomery County COVID-19 Cases
Montgomery County Public Health District, in conjunction with Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management, can confirm Montgomery County now has 47 positive cases of COVID-19, an increase of 6 from yesterday. As of 3 p.m. today, there are 314 negative results and 174 pending tests.

So, they've tested a total of 535 people in a county with a population of 600k+. That's 0.09% of the population.

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Monty looked wide open yesterday compared to Harris. Not surprised. Monty doesn't care about no stinking rules.

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County judge issued a stay at home order that closed the last of the "non-essential" businesses the other day. But, yeah, The Woodlands Mall was still open a couple of days ago.

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I saw reports of the stay at home order, but it isn't posted on the MCOEM site. Did he really issue it?

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I think so. My stylist has said she can't work, and the exercise studio I go to had to get special permission for the owners to go in and live-stream workouts on Facebook. Let me see if I can find a link.

http://thewoodlandstownship-tx.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/9997

163 new cases today, starting to see either a bump in testing or some serious exponential growth. Most likely both

Getting test results seems to really be lagging. That bump of 163 new cases was attributed to getting a "batch" of results back.

Montgomery County is up to 63 cases (16 new ones today), but they have still only tested 600 people.

Not to play semantics, but there are 163 new confirmations.

The confirmations were seeing today were infected a week and half or up to three weeks ago. Testing is a huge bottle neck.

Don't disagree but it's the only measure we have

I simply don't understand why they govt isn't urging everyone to wear masks. It's been proven over and over that is essential in stooping the spread. Again you wear the masks mainly to protect others because for many they are asymptomatic.

I'd wear one of they were available

Ok... I scrolled a bit back in the thread and didn't see this...

Why is it that Johns Hopkins and other trackers currently show Harris County at 445 cases with 3 deceased and the Harris County site only shows 213 with 1 deceased? I realize they only update the HC site once a day at 3:00PM, but I'm not sure I'm buying the numbers more than doubling since yesterday afternoon.

not sure what site you are referring to, but likely not updated yet.

it was announced 163 and 53 new cases in Houston & Harris county yesterday, respectfully