Readers react to mask move

How many lives, Abbott?

Regarding “Biden blasts ‘Neanderthal thinking,’” A1, March 4): To Gov. Gregg Abbott: Thanks for canceling all of your orders regarding mask-wearing and COVID-19 precautions by restaurants and other businesses! I am now writing to suggest that you also cancel all legislation and regulations regarding seat belts, drunken driving, speed limits and littering. Deaths in car accidents and littering are way down in recent decades. We have made lots of progress (like COVID), and no one likes being told what to do by the government, whether using uncomfortable seat belts or driving at a certain speed. All we need is to trust people to (as you so wisely put it) “exercise personal responsibility” and just do the right thing! Right? Am I missing something here? Oh, and if people start again dying in car accidents right and left, you can always put it on local officials to figure out what to do.

Tom Ellis, Missouri City

By removing the mask mandate Gov. Greg Abbott is not putting his life on the line. He is one of the 9 percent who has received a COVID vaccination and lives in a cushy cocoon of COVID-tested staff. He, instead, is putting the lives of thousands of unvaccinated Texans on the line. Early in the pandemic he hesitated to put a mask mandate in place which may have cost thousands of Texas lives. Under what bone-headed logic is he now going to remove the mandate? This peril is now compounded by the reality that there are more virulent virus variants that spread more rapidly. If the deaths resume an upward trend Abbott can only lose reelection, his job and possibly the Republican control of Texas, but thousands of Texas family members will lose their lives.

Ted Agon, Houston