On March 22, 2020, Dallas County issued a “shelter in place” order, set to take effect at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, March 23, 2020, and running until April 3, 2020, unless extended. The order generally requires Dallas County residents to remain at home except when performing Essential Activities, Essential Business, or Essential Government Functions (residents of shared dwellings may use common or shared outdoor space so long as they maintain a distance of at least six feet from any other person).

Essential Activities for which residents may leave home include:

• Activities or tasks essential to the health and safety of a resident or member of their family or household (e.g., obtaining medical supplies or medication, seeking health care, or obtaining supplies needed to work from home);
• Obtaining necessary services or supplies for a resident or member of their family or household, or to deliver those services or supplies to others (e.g., obtaining food, household consumer products, pet food and supplies, and other “products necessary to maintain the safety, sanitation, and essential operation of residences);
• Outdoor activities, as long as all involved maintain six feet of social distancing (e.g., walking, biking, hiking, or running);
• Caring for a family member or pet in another household;
• Performing work providing essential products and services at an Essential Business; and
• Carrying out other activities specifically allowed in the Order.

In addition, businesses other than Essential Businesses, are ordered to cease “all activities at facilities located within the County.” However, the Order clarifies that non-essential businesses may continue to allow employees and contractors to work from home. Essential Businesses must “to the greatest extent possible,” comply with a set of Social Distancing Guidelines attached to the Order and available here.

The Order defines Essential Businesses to include:

• Essential Healthcare Operations, including “hospitals, clinics, dentists, pharmacies, and biotech companies, healthcare facilities, healthcare suppliers, mental health providers, substance abuse service providers, blood banks, medical research, laboratory services, or any related and/or ancillary healthcare services.” Also excepted are home-based and residential care for seniors, adults, and children, and veterinary care and animal health and welfare services. Significantly, the Order bans elective medical, surgical, and dental procedures—those “which … can be postponed or cancelled based on patient risk”—within Dallas County, and directs medical facilities to identify such procedures. Earlier in the day, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a statewide ban that prohibits “all surgeries and procedures that are not immediately medically necessary to correct a serious medical condition of, or to preserve the life of, a patient who without immediate performance of the surgery or procedure would be at risk for serious adverse medical consequences or death,” except those that “if performed in accordance with the commonly accepted standard of clinical practice, would not deplete the hospital capacity or the personal protective equipment needed to cope with the COVID-19 disaster.”
• Essential Government Functions, including “all services provided by local governments needed to ensure the continuing operation of the government agencies to provide for the health, safety, and welfare of the public.” Those functions, however, must be performed in compliance with the Social Distancing Guidelines.
• Essential Critical Infrastructure activities, including the operation and maintenance of public works construction, residential and commercial construction, internet, and telecommunications systems, financial institutions, airport operations, water, sewer, gas, electrical, oil refining, roads and highways, public transportation, solid waste collection and removal, defense and national security-related operations, and essential manufacturing operations. All work by Essential Businesses must comply with the Social Distancing Guidelines.
• Essential Retail, including grocery stores, warehouse stores, big-box stores, bodegas, liquor stores, gas stations and convenience stores, farmers’ markets that sell food products and household staples, farming, fishing, livestock cultivation, businesses that ship or deliver goods or services directly to residences, restaurants and other facilities that prepare and serve food for delivery or carry out, schools and other facilities that typically provide free services on a pick-up and take-away basis only, laundromats, dry cleaners, laundry service providers, gas stations, auto-supply, auto and bicycle repair, hardware stores, and businesses that supply products needed for people to work from home.
• Providers of Basic Necessities to Economically Disadvantaged Populations, defined as “[b]usinesses that provide food, shelter, and social services, and other necessities of life for economically disadvantaged or otherwise needy individuals.”
• Essential Services Necessary to Maintain Essential Operations of Residences or Other Essential Businesses, including trash and recycling collection and disposal, mail and shipping services, building cleaning and maintenance, warehouse/distribution and fulfillment, storage for essential businesses, funeral homes, crematoriums and cemeteries, plumbers, electricians, exterminators, “other service providers who provide services that are necessary to maintaining the safety, sanitation, and essential operations of residences and Essential Businesses,” professional services including legal and accounting services as needed to support compliance with “other legally mandated activities,” and businesses that supply other Essential Businesses with supplies needed to operate.
• News Media including newspapers, television, radio, and “other media services.”
• Childcare Services, defined as “[c]hildcare facilities providing services that enable employees exempted in this Order to work as permitted.”

The Order also provides that “[r]eligious and worship services may only be provided by video and teleconference,” and requires that in-person preparations for such services be limited to 10 people who must adhere to the Social Distancing Guidelines. Finally, the Order carries forward several measures already in place across Dallas County, including a suspension of eviction hearings and writs of possession for 60 days.