- Coronavirus Alert: Harris County, where Houston is located, has ordered bars and restaurants to be closed and may only sell take-out food for two weeks.
- The measure was taken by Judge Lina Hidalgo, the highest authority in the county, as a protective measure so that the dangerous COVID-19 does not spread among the population.
- “You have to be patient because the calamity is already over,” says DJ Tony Moss, who by order of the authorities will not be able to work in the bars where he usually plays his music.
Texas coronavirus alert. The Harris County In Houston, Texas, he ordered the complete closure of bars and restaurants for two weeks due to the coronavirus.
Judge Lina Hidalgo, the highest authority in Harris County, made the official announcement in the early afternoon of Monday, March 16, 2020 with Sylvester Turner, Mayor of Houston, and Ed González, Harris County Sheriff, as an extreme precautionary measure to combat the COVD-19 pandemic that attacks the world.
According to Hidalgo, the order is effective from 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 and restaurants can only sell food with home delivery or that customers pick them up in the parking lots but there can be no diners. inside the establishments.
For its part, the bars that do not sell food will have to close during those 15 days that the authorities of Harris County have ordered the largest Texas and that, in addition to Houston, includes the cities of Pasadena, Bay Town, Katy, Jersey Village , Clear Lake, Jacinto City, Atascosita, Deer Park and Galena Park, among other smaller ones.
With this drastic measure, Harris County joins the same actions that the cities of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, among others, had already taken to try to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which has already had 4,000 cases reported in the United States. .
The action that Harris County has taken will have a great impact in a city like Houston, and its surroundings, where many Hispanics depend on the food service industry for their family survival in roles such as cooks, waiters, bartenders, kitchen assistants and dishwasher.
Óscar Santaella, a Mexican-Brazilian chef and owner of the Churrasco Food-Truck specialized in Brazilian sandwiches, described the Harris County measure as “devastating… but the truth, it was something that was coming”.
“We were hitting the coronavirus already because many events in which we hold banquets have already been canceled and that is an investment in food, supplies, which we have already made and that we will not recover,” says Santaella, with regret in her voice, about the ravages they already face due to the pandemic.
Santaella, who has been in the Houston gastronomic industry for almost 20 years since he arrived as an immigrant with his wife and daughter from his native Veracruz, in Mexico, assures that they are “a little prepared with savings to endure, but they are the savings. emergency, when they are over I don’t know what we are going to do, ”he says with uncertainty.
Chef Óscar Santaella, inside his Churrasco Food-Truck, says that the coronavirus pandemic has already affected his business because many banquets he had scheduled canceled him. (Photo: David Dorantes / MundoHispánico)
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