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In reply to the discussion: Abbott ends Texas mask mandate, opens businesses '100 percent' [View all]TomCADem
(17,380 posts)Republicans governors are once again betting with American lives. Last year, after cases started to drop in April, AZ, TX and FL Republican governors rushed to reopen betting that by reopening a bit early, they can help build goodwill with Trump for his reelection effort. Of course, this resulted in a summer wave and insured that COVID-19 continued to ping around the country all but ensuring a third wave during the holiday season.
Now, ironically, due to Democratic leadership, cases have begun to go down as people take precautions seriously and vaccines are distributed. However, Republicans are once again trying to prematurely open in the hopes of building credibility with the Republican base.
We can only hope that this does not cause too much damage, because this might not only start a fourth wave, but this increases the risk of new variants that might be vaccine resistant.
Of course, if this backfires, watch them all blame Democrats again.
May 2020:
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/05/15/texas-reopening-coronavirus-cases/
Two weeks have passed since Gov. Greg Abbott allowed Texas retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, malls, museums and libraries to open at 25% capacity.
In that time, Texas has seen a modest but steady increase in the growth of new coronavirus cases, and the state is not meeting all benchmarks for reopening set by White House officials or even Abbott himself. The state set new daily records this week for both new cases and deaths.
State officials have pointed to other metrics, such as the continued availability of hospital beds and a gradually declining rate of tests coming back positive, as cause for optimism in the fight against the virus. And they say the state urgently needs to allow businesses to reopen to help millions of Texans who have lost jobs.
So far, the states performance has been good, said Peter Hotez, a preeminent infectious disease expert and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
July 2020:
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-mask-mandate-gov-greg-abbott-executive-order/287-75207055-ec2d-4de1-9f97-732030863703
Gov. Greg Abbott issued an order Thursday requiring all Texans residing in counties with more than 20 cases to wear a face mask while in a commercial space or public buildings or when in an outdoor setting that does not allow for 6 feet of physical distancing.
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The move comes after weeks of surging daily COVID-19 cases and hospitalization in Texas.
On Wednesday, state health officials reported that Texas surpassed 8,000 single day cases for the first time.
In North Texas, Dallas and Tarrant counties crossed 600 single-day confirmed cases earlier in the week, and then Dallas County reported more than 700 on Thursday.