Two days after a Dallas appeals court dealt Texas Gov. Greg Abbott a legal setback by upholding Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins’ order requiring masks in schools and businesses, the Texas Supreme Court shut the mandate down Sunday.

The entirely Republican Court granted a temporary stay at the request of Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

"The ban doesn't prohibit using masks. Anyone who wants to wear a mask can do so, including in schools," Abbott tweeted Sunday.

Hearings on the mask mandates will continue in lower courts as scheduled, the Court ruled.

"We won’t stop working with parents, doctors, schools, business + others to protect you and intend to win that hearing," Jenkins tweeted Sunday.

-ABC News' Jim Scholz

As of Saturday, 575 patients are waiting for a general bed in hospitals in the Houston area. Eighty-seven patients are waiting for an intensive care unit beds.

Hospital officials in Houston said last week that area hospitals with beds had insufficient numbers of nurses to serve them.

Nurses the state was going to surge to the area have yet to arrive, more than two weeks after they were promised.

Gov. Greg Abbott appealed for out-of-state help to fight the third wave of COVID-19 in Texas while two more of the state's largest school districts announced mask mandates in defiance of the governor last week.

As of Saturday, there are 3.3M confirmed cases of COVID-19 and there have been 54,289 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. 46.33% of Texans have been fully vaccinated.

COVID-19 infections have continued to soar in Florida. 

The state reported 151,415 new infections in the last week -- that's 14 times higher than the number of new cases reported just two months ago. For the week of June 11, the state recorded 10,461 new cases and a positivity rate of 3.4%.

Hospitalizations have surged to 15,750, the Florida Hospital Association reported.

The state also recorded 286 deaths over the past week and a new case positivity rate of 19.3%.

The White House offered a glimmer of hope on the vaccination front Saturday.

More than 991,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered Friday. Among those, 604,000 people were newly vaccinated, White House COVID-19 Data Director Cyrus Shahpar said Saturday. 

It’s a sign of progress compared to last Saturday when 840,000 doses were reported.

So far, over 197 million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose and more than 167 million are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.

The superintendent of schools in Leon County, Florida, which includes Tallahassee, announced Monday that parents cannot opt their kids out of wearing masks when the school year begins Wednesday.

"The goal is to keep our children out of the hospital," superintendent Rocky Hanna said. "Why would you not air on the side of caution?"

An emergency order by the Florida Department of Health over the weekend allows districts to let parents opt out of mask mandates without giving a reason.

By defying state rules, Hanna risks consequences from the state. Gov. Ron DeSantis' executive order on July 30 gave the education commissioner the right to pull funds from schools that fail to protect "parents' rights ... to make healthcare decisions for their minor children."

Hanna issued sharp words about any attempt to deny money for his school district."Any time you take money away from schools, you hurt children," he said.

DeSantis' press secretary, Christina Pushaw, told ABC News after Hanna's announcement that the financial consequences of such a breach of state rules would likely mean withholding the salary of the superintendent or school board members -- not money from kids.

-ABC News' Will McDuffie