March 2 Houston Chronicle
Playing politics with lives
The governor says it, so it must be true.
Texans, in the words of Gov. Greg Abbott Tuesday, have “mastered” the safe daily habits that prevent the contraction and spread of COVID-19.
Through Texans’ tireless efforts to obey public health guidelines and follow the governor’s statewide mask mandate, the pandemic is abating in the state, saving not only lives, but also allowing Abbott to slip the onerous bonds of responsibility and leave the fate of millions of our fellow Texans in the capable hands of the vigilant citizens of Texas.
“Texans have wrestled with COVID, and they have learned best how to conduct their own lives,” Abbott said in a press conference in Lubbock. “State mandates are no longer needed.”
Keep up the good work.
We’re all going to need it after Abbott announced Tuesday that starting March 10, his pandemic-related restrictions will be lifted, allowing all Texas businesses to open at 100 percent capacity — yes, even bars and movie theaters, if they decide to do so. The economic case for allowing struggling businesses to reopen, restoring livelihoods and saving untold Texans from financial ruin is clear, but the move carries unacceptably high risk.
How in the Hill Country is lifting the state’s mask requirement instituted in
July good for business? How is it good for any of us, save those who are more concerned with the slight discomfort of a piece of cloth across their face than the life and death consequences of a deadly disease?
Abbott is actually hurting businesses by taking away their validation for requiring customers to don masks: it’s state law. Now, businesses are on their own in trying to get Billy Bob to comply with basic safety protocols.
More importantly, Abbott is gambling with people’s lives — again. Much as he did when the state reopened back in May to disastrous results, he has decided that politics outweigh the need to safeguard public health. More than 42,000 Texans have died of COVID-19.
It is irresponsible to ease restrictions now. Even if the odds are better this time, more Texans will get sick and more Texans will die.
We know very well how we got to the point where a lifesaving face mask became a political statement, but we won’t digress. Abbott is either gravely disingenuous or willfully ignorant about the behaviors of people in his own state when he claims everybody has “mastered’ mask-wearing. For some, it’s a political statement to refuse. For your run-of-themill gas station clerk in rural Texas, it’s just something city folk do. …
After consistent improvement with declining numbers, the latest weekly rolling average showed new cases and deaths in the U.S. both rising by 4 percent. More than 514,000 people have died from COVID in the United States as of Tuesday.
Abbott also made sure that local officials’ hands are tied, expressly prohibiting county judges from using the threat of jail to enforce restrictions or allowing any penalty for not wearing a mask. County judges can re-implement restrictions only if COVID patients make up more than 15 percent hospital capacity in their hospital region for seven straight days.
Allowing preventive measures to be enforced only after people are so sick that they are overrunning hospitals and pushing doctors and nurses to their breaking points is political malpractice.
“This is not the time to promote more infections, to promote more hospitalizations, to promote more deaths for the sake of political expediency,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said.
Once again, Abbott is trying to pass off a failure of governance as respect for personal freedom, to peddle sacrifice as a viable answer to restoring normalcy.
“We will continue to grieve for all who have suffered through this pandemic,” Abbott said. “And we will always mourn the loss of all lives.”
Texas doesn’t need Abbott’s grief — there is enough to go around. We need his leadership to keep more people from dying. Scrapping the mask mandate, which helps businesses stay open by slowing the virus’ spread, is likely to do the opposite.