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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday issued another executive order cracking down on COVID-19 vaccine mandates — this time banning any entity in Texas, including private businesses, from requiring vaccinations for employees or customers. Abbott also called on the Legislature to pass a law with the same effect. The Legislature is in its third special legislative session, which ends Oct. 19. (Allen, 10/11)

Under increasing pressure from his GOP primary opponents, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is changing his position on vaccine mandates and now trying to bar private businesses from requiring their workers to get them. It was just in August, Abbott declared in an executive order that he would bar governments from requiring them. But his office made clear he would not meddle in private business decisions. "Private businesses don't need government running their business,” Abbott’s spokeswoman Renae Eze said at the time. (Wallace, 10/11)

As of Oct. 10, the state has reported around 4.1 million cases, with 3.4 million confirmed cases reported in 254 counties and 686,479 probable cases reported in 230 counties since the pandemic began. Confirmed cases are detected by molecular tests, such as PCR tests, which are taken with a nasal swab and are highly accurate according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Probable cases are detected through rapid-result antigen tests, which are faster and less accurate. These totals may differ from what county and city health departments report. The Tribune is measuring both the number of cases in each county and the rate of cases per 1,000 residents in the last two weeks. (10/11)

A16-year-old Texas student has died from COVID-19, becoming the fourth person from the same school district to lose their life after contracting the virus since August. George Moralez, a 10th-grader at Connally High School in Waco, passed away on October 6, having reportedly been ill for more than a month. ... Three district employees have also died from COVID-19 in recent weeks. Connally Junior High seventh-grade social studies teacher David McCormick, 59, passed away on August 24, and just four days later, a sixth-grade social studies teacher at the same school, 41-year-old Natalia Chansler, died. On September 14, Angela Thompson, an instructional aide at Connally Primary School, died from COVID-19, having contracted the virus before the school year began. (Sulleyman, 10/12)

When Brittany Phillips Ramirez relocated her family back to her hometown of Waco over the summer, COVID-19 precautions at Mountainview Elementary School were foremost on her mind. And as the delta variant spiked, she even considered home-schooling her 6-year-old daughter because she worried that the school district might adopt a more relaxed approach when it came to students wearing masks at schools. But shortly after classes began, the Waco Independent School District made a bold choice that surprised residents like Ramirez. It became one of about 70 school districts in Texas at the time to adopt a mandate that students wear masks while in school. nd it did so in defiance of Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order barring public schools from requiring students wear masks. (Reynolds, 10/11)

Students in Texas public schools are facing another year upturned by COVID-19 as the highly contagious delta variant spreads, mask mandates are inconsistent and children under 12 cannot yet be vaccinated against the virus. Two months into this school year, the number of reported coronavirus cases among students has surpassed the total from the entire 2020-21 school year. Schools are prohibited from taking precautions such as requiring masks, though some are fighting the governor’s order banning mask mandates. Far more students are on campus, since most districts do not have a remote learning option. (Huang, Cai and Lopez, 10/11)

Houston’s major pediatric hospitals are experiencing a significant increase in patients with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children — or MIS-C — a relatively new condition that triggers inflamed organs, most commonly seen in children who have been exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19. While pediatric COVID hospitalizations have dropped by as much as 50 percent in the Houston area, Texas Children’s Hospital reported an all-time high number of MIS-C admissions in the month of September with 30 patients. Children’s Memorial Hermann also saw a major uptick in the same time frame. (Gill, 10/11)