Updated at 5:45 p.m.: to include Abbott’s remarks about Dallas Mavericks, Texas Rangers, Dallas Cowboys.

AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday said bars, offices, nonessential manufacturing plants and gyms in Texas could immediately begin operating at 50% capacity.

Further relaxing coronavirus restrictions, Abbott said bar patrons will have to be seated, not standing, but can congregate in half the numbers they did before the pandemic.

Announcing Phase III of his reopening plan, the governor allowed bars and virtually every other type of business that was restricted in Phase II to running at 25% capacity to jump to half-capacity if they wish, beginning Wednesday.

At restaurants, which since May 22 have been permitted to operate at 50% capacity indoors, Abbott said maximum table sizes immediately may jump to 10 patrons, from six.

Starting June 12, restaurants will be permitted to run at 75% capacity, he said.

"The people of Texas continue to prove that we can safely and responsibly open our state for business while containing COVID-19 and keeping our state safe,” Abbott said in a news release.

For the first time, he let amusement parks plan on reopening, but on a staggered basis: Theme parks in counties that have had more than 1,000 cumulative confirmed cases of COVID-19 won’t be able to reopen theme parks such as Six Flags and Sea World until June 19 -- and even then, at 50% capacity. Those in counties with fewer than 1,000 cases, though, such as Schlitterbahn, at both its locations, in New Braunfels and Galveston, may open at half-capacity immediately.

Water parks, which Abbott allowed to reopen at 25% capacity on May 29, are allowed to immediately go to 50% capacity under guidelines he issued Wednesday.

Swimming pools, libraries, museums, rodeos, equestrian events and sporting events -- professional, collegiate or similar -- also can immediately operate at 50% capacity.

“Stadiums, whether it be where the Mavericks play or the Texas Rangers play or the Dallas Cowboys play, will be able to seat [at] 50% capacity,” he told KDFW-TV in Dallas late Wednesday.

July 4 restrictions

However, with an eye to the upcoming July 4 holiday, Abbott effectively imposed a limit of a kind on outdoor events not otherwise covered in his latest executive order. If more than 500 people attend, the county judge or mayor -- consulting with health authorities -- can impose additional restrictions.

In rural counties with 10 or fewer active cases of coronavirus, all businesses can go to 75% capacity, starting June 12, he said.

The governor praised Texans, while urging them to continue practicing good hygiene and social distancing, as he announced further reopenings of activities that were put on hold by his March stay-at-home orders.

“As anticipated, the new positive cases that we are seeing are largely the result of isolated hot spots in nursing homes, jails, and meat packing plants,” Abbott said.

"Thanks to the effectiveness of our Surge Response Teams, we have the ability to contain those hot spots while opening up Texas for business."

As he has for weeks, Abbott conditioned further relaxations on continued, voluntary cooperation by Texas residents.

“As we begin Phase III, I ask all Texans and Texas businesses to continue following the standard health protocols and to heed the guidance of our state and federal officials who continue to closely monitor COVID-19,” he said.

The announcement is the latest in Texas’ march to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The governor relaxed COVID-19 restrictions for more categories of businesses and activities 16 days after saying Texas had contained the virus’ spread enough to begin Phase II of his reopening plan.

While issuing a news release slowed reporters from asking Abbott questions about the thinking behind his moves, the governor granted live interviews via satellite to TV stations for early evening newscasts in Dallas and four other cities.

Speaking with KFDA-TV in Amarillo, which had been held back because of coronavirus outbreaks at area meat-packing plants, Abbott was upbeat.

“All these massive stadiums like that baseball park you have in downtown can open up to 50%," he said. "Theaters can open up. In the smaller counties around the area, they can actually open up everything up to 75%.”

Texas has ramped up testing capabilities, but is still not consistently meeting Abbott’s goal of running 30,000 tests each day. Over the seven-day period that ended on Monday, the state reported an average of roughly 23,500 test results a day.

Numbers still going up

While Abbott has said he’s pleased that Texas has ample hospital capacity, Democrats are quick to note that COVID-19 hospitalizations remain steady – and aren’t going down.

On Wednesday, Dallas County Health & Human Services made a similar observation.

“The weekly numbers of new hospital admissions for COVID-19 have not declined significantly over the past seven weeks,” the county agency said in a daily update.

On May 18, Abbott cited the state’s total number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients and the “positivity rate”– the percentage of those given a diagnostic test who test positive – as the two metrics that he and four physician advisers have used “to inform the state’s ongoing plan to safely and strategically open.”

At the time, Abbott touted how the positivity rate – which on April 13 was nearly 14% -- had declined to under 5%.

However, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services, the positivity rate as of Monday had crept back above 5% -- to 5.4%.

That has jumped by more than 1 percentage point in the past week, Texas House Democratic leaders noted.

They reiterated their belief Abbott has reopened the state precipitously, before adequate testing was being performed and the state had ramped up “contact tracing” of people potentially exposed to confirmed patients.

"On Monday, Texas saw its highest 7-day average of new cases since the pandemic began,” said Grand Prairie Rep. Chris Turner, who heads the House Democratic Caucus.

“The data are clear – unfortunately, COVID-19 numbers are moving in the wrong direction right now and we need to tap the brakes, not step on the gas."

In his release, though, Abbott stressed that between May 26 and Tuesday, more than 45% of new cases came from jails or prisons, meat packing plants and nursing homes.

There are checklists for reopening on the governor’s website, though none of the minimum standards laid out is a requirement. They’re just suggestions. “Public health guidance cannot anticipate every unique situation,” each of the checklists states. Use “common sense and wise judgment,” they urge.

As of late Tuesday, 66,658 Texans had tested positive for the virus, according to state figures.

Since early March, 1,698 Texans have died at least in part because of COVID-19. Late Tuesday, there were 1,487 coronavirus patients in the hospital.

In Dallas County, the cumulative number of confirmed cases during the pandemic was 10,958 as of Wednesday, according to the state health agency. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins has reported 249 coronavirus-related deaths in the county as of Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Dallas County reported 257 new COVID-19 cases and 16 deaths, a single-day record for both categories. The previous high for new cases was 253 and deaths was 14.

After several days of large-scale protests -- in both major and mid-size Texas cities -- of last week’s killing of Houston native George Floyd by Minneapolis police, the virus’ spread could accelerate. On Tuesday, Abbott told KXXV-TV in Waco that the fact many demonstrators didn’t wear masks and maintain social distancing “certainly is not optimal.”