COVID-19 Watch

Texas governor urges residents to 'stay home' as COVID-19 cases explode

The governor is urging Texans to stay home.

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Texas saw a record-breaking 5,000 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, June 23, marking yet another grim milestone in the pandemic. As new infections soar, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is urging residents to stay home.

"Because the spread is so rampant right now, there is never a reason for you to have to leave your home," Abbott told KBTX in Bryan. "Unless you need to go out, the safest place for you to be is your home."

Though Texas is about to hit 118,000 coronavirus cases, the fourth highest among U.S. states, Abbott has said closing down Texas is a last resort. Instead, he said in his interview with KBTX, the state will continue to educate and reenforce the importance of maintaining six feet of distance, wearing masks, and washing hands.

"The first obligation that we have is to make sure people around the state really comprehend the magnitude of the challenge we're dealing with. There remain a lot of people in the state of Texas who think that the spread of COVID-19 is really not a challenge," he said during the eight-minute interview. "Today, Texas will report an all-time high of people testing positive."

"The coronavirus is serious, it's spreading in Brazos County [and] across the entire state of Texas."

Abbott noted that part of this education is the increase of enforcement around the state of Texas, citing Texas Alcoholic Beverages Commission's weekend sting that temporarily stripped 17 Texas bars of their liquor licenses, including four in Austin.

The governor's message comes less than 24 hours after a June 22 press conference in which Abbott wore a face mask and acknowledged that they are helpful in preventing the spread of COVID-19.

He did not, however, go so far as to issue a statewide mandate requiring residents to wear them. Instead, he's largely left that to cities, including Austin, which recently made face masks mandatory in all businesses, restaurants, and shops.

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Texas shocks as the No. 3 least safe state in America, new report says

Photo by Lukas Souza on Unsplash

Texas ranks as the 48th "safest" state — out of 50.

While no state is invulnerable, some do more to protect their residents than others. And a new study has declared Texas one of the five least safe states in America.

WalletHub's "Safest States in America (2026)" report examined all 50 states for their emergency preparedness and for residents' personal and residential, financial, workplace, and road safety. Factors that weighed into the rankings include specific crime rates per capita, the share of the population that is uninsured, road quality ratings, workplace injury statistics, and more.

Texas ranked at the bottom of the list as the 48th "safest" state — or the third least safe state. It's joined by several other Southern states, like Mississippi (No. 50), Louisiana (No. 49), Florida (No. 47), and Arkansas (No. 46).

According to WalletHub, Texas specifically ranks third to last in the nationwide "emergency preparedness" category, which was determined based on the prevalence of climate disasters causing $1 billion or more in damages from 1980-2024, and the loss amount resulting from those disasters.

The Lone Star State also ranked 40th (or 10th worst) across three safety categories: personal and residential safety, financial safety, and road safety. The report additionally found that Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents nationally.

Texas' "workplace safety" was the state's highest-ranking category, landing 30th nationally.

Additional rankings that determined Texas' overall safety include:

No. 30 – Assaults per capita
No. 32 – Fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 full-time workers
No. 32 – Sex offenders per capita
No. 35 – Murders and non-negligent manslaughters per capita
No. 36 – Fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles of travel
No. 41 – Loss amounts from climate disasters per capita

According to the report, the five safest states in America are all located in the Northeast. Vermont leads as the country's safest state in 2026, followed by Massachusetts (No. 2), Maine (No. 3), New Hampshire (No. 4), and Connecticut (No. 5).

Though every state has varying levels of safety, WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo asserted that the safest places in the U.S. categorically invest in protecting their residents. Top-ranking states have low crime rates and diligently maintain their road infrastructure, and other states that prioritize their residents' safety have "strong economies and job markets that prevent people from falling into dangerous financial situations."

"[The safest states in America] have high levels of occupational safety and disaster preparedness, too," Lupo said. "In addition, states are made safer by efforts that individual residents take, such as forming a neighborhood watch or working in firefighting and EMT jobs at high rates."

safety texas wallethub reports