In rural Texas, skeptics prevail even as virus spikes
In the vast expanses of rural Texas, coronavirus is creeping in like the dust.
And — like the dust — few pay it much mind.
Outside the state’s pandemicravaged big cities is Donald Trump country, where the disease is seen as more threatening to personal freedoms than personal health. Masks mostly stay in the truck, where they’re fetched only if needed. Even then, they’re worn grudgingly out of politeness to business owners — many who are friends or neighbors — and taken off again as soon as possible.
That thinking is making it harder to stamp out the latest outbreak as it spreads to the state’s most remote corners, putting a population with the highest concentration of elderly at increasing risk.
“I’m not worried about it,” said Jeff Donaldson, a 63-year-old resident of Bosque County who has been occupying himself riding motorcycles and fishing with friends since he retired as a truck driver. “It’s all just about the politics.”
Gov. Greg Abbott, who initially resisted stringent measures to combat the disease, is enduring the fury of his own party’s right wing to convince voters like Donaldson.
Abbott’s approval rate has dropped to 47 percent from 56 percent since early June, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released July 22.
Teeming Houston has become one of the nation’s hottest COVID zones, with hospitals straining to contain all the sick. Dallas County had an 18-day streak of 1,000 or more cases a day. But in counties like Bosque, about 95 miles southwest of Dallas, many people don’t doubt COVID-19 is real, but dismiss it as no worse than a bad flu.
Only four out of Texas’s 254 counties remain untouched by COVID-19, down from 23 on June 1. The state has been regularly charting about 10,000 new cases a day in July, and daily deaths were at 173 on Thursday, bringing the total to 4,521.
Masks are a particular sore point in rural Texas, as residents cite the cascade of contradictory advice about how much they actually help fight the virus. Top health officials originally advised against wearing them, and Trump himself resisted being seen in public with a face covering until recent days.
Bosque County’s cases will continue to rise, said Judge Don Pool, the county’s highest elected official. Tourists from hot spots such as Dallas and Waco poured into nearby Lake Whitney on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, certainly bringing the virus with them, he said. Locals are fed up with sheltering at home and are venturing out more.
“When I go out in the country, a tremendous number of people are wearing masks. They’re trying to behave,” Pool said. “But there’s still this element that thinks this is no worse than a cold and they’re going to do what they want because it’s their right.”
Pool is walking a fine line with voters — 80 percent of whom voted for Trump — after active cases surpassed 20 in his county and triggered the governor’s mask mandate. He hears the conspiracy theories and is constantly defending the constitutionality of the order he requires businesses to post.
“They’re infringing on our rights,” said Melanie Stark, 46, who shopped maskless at a grocery store in Meridian. The face covering is suffocating for Stark, she says, and she believes she’s healthy enough to withstand the virus if she got it. “You can’t enforce something like this.”
Sherri Beardan, 42, whose beauty salon was closed in April for more than four weeks, wears a mask as required while conducting business, but she’s not concerned about health risks. She doesn’t believe the rising virus numbers are accurate.
“I think it’s a whole government crock of B.S.,” she said. “They want to get rid of the president. They want him to look as bad as possible.”
With chronic bronchitis, Randy Yates, 62, knows he’s in a high-risk category, but sides with those who say COVID-19 is hyped. He believes Bosque County will pull through the pandemic just fine. That hinges on faith, he said, not following orders of government officials.
“If the good Lord is ready for me, there’s not a thing in the world I can do to change it,” he said after a meal at Johnny’s Place. “I’m not going to panic about what’s going on in this world.”