The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- Texas
- Level
- State
- Authority
- Tex. Health & Safety Code § 81.083(b), (k)
- Issued
- 1989-09-01 Sept. 1, 1989
- Effective
- standing (read as 1989-09-01)
- End
- standing (read as 2021-09-30)
- In force
- Standing since Sept. 1, 1989 (a statutory duty; in force throughout the six quarters)
- Quarters
- 2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Quarantine and isolationStanding duty
- Addressees
- persons generally (individuals and groups of five or more)
- Character
- statutory authority
- Collection
- Standing duties: Texas DUT-TX
Operative words
If the department or a health authority has reasonable cause to believe that an individual is ill with, has been exposed to, or is the carrier of a communicable disease, the department or health authority may order the individual... to implement control measures that are reasonable and necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, and spread of the disease in this state.
Penalty
Tex. Health & Safety Code § 81.087: Class B misdemeanor (fine to $2,000, confinement to 180 days, or both; Penal Code § 12.22, Ex. DUT-TX-019)
What it required
Any individual, and under subsection (k) every member of a group of five or more, believed to be ill with, exposed to or a carrier of a communicable disease was bound to implement the control measures the department or health authority ordered (isolation, quarantine, restriction), which is the legal basis on which the exclusion of symptomatic and exposed employees from the workplace rested; subsection (l)(6) recites that 'a criminal penalty applies' to a group member who 'knowingly refuses to perform or allow the performance of the control measures in the order.' Character as recorded: statutory_authority (enabling power; binds through the orders issued under it).
Retrieval noteSubsection (m) authorizes peace officers to use reasonable force to secure compliance. The employee-screening and send-home protocols of the DSHS checklists (Exs. TX-043, DUT-TX-020) operate on the individuals this section reaches.