Texas Mask Mandate
Wow! Texas has just been getting hit with trouble one after another: first the flood, now the uplifting of the mask mandate. Follow Pooja in this informative editorial as she reports on the recent event in Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott lifted the mask mandate during a global pandemic and what this means for others.
TEXAS MASK MANDATE
By Pooja Patel
Gov. Greg Abbott announced reopening Texas in the third phase Photo credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr/The Texas Tribune
As you may have heard, Texas governor Greg Abbott recently announced that Texas will no longer be under the required mask mandate. Since the beginning of March, Texas has been mask-free. Businesses were allowed to open to 100% capacity with no COVID restrictions or regulations needed. Some people might be celebrating this announcement, while others might be scared for their health and the well-being of others.
Let’s dig deeper and see what this means for Texas citizens and the whole country.
So far, 93.2% of Texans are not fully vaccinated (AOC) and, recently, they have been faced with disaster-- the Texas flood, which devastated many families and their homes. Lifting the mask mandate will put many lives, especially essential and front line workers, at risk and make them more vulnerable. As of March 27, “Texas has more than 2.7 million Covid-19 cases and more than 47,000 deaths, according to data by Johns Hopkins University” (CNN). This is simply adding on to worldwide cases and making the COVID situation worse and out of control since only a small portion of the Texas population has been vaccinated. Also, the vaccine has not even been made available to many age groups yet. The virus will aggressively and even more rapidly spread, leading to an explosion of cases. According to CNN, “Today the city of Houston’s positivity rate of 13.1%, which is up from last week.” By lifting the mandate, governor Abbott has shown his irresponsibility and incapability to make proper and safe decisions in the favor of his people.
Since the mask mandate has been lifted, violence and harassment against small businesses and restaurants have also increased. Some shops may still require their customers to wear masks inside their stores for personal health well-being and safety. However, many customers have been harassing and attacking those workers and violating their rules and regulations and received backlash. For example, Mike Nguyen, owner of Noodle Tree restaurant in San Antonio, “...made 20 harassment and threat reports in the last week” (CNN). Some of those complaints were about mask mandates and some were about racial harassment. This lifted mask mandate is simply increasing violence and harassment when customers are not respecting individual shops’ requirements and safety rules. Unfortunately, business owners feel powerless and they can do nothing about this because even their governor is ignoring their plea to put the mask mandate back in place.
Many health officials have made it very clear that this decision is bad and warned against it. Since the beginning of the pandemic, health officials have been emphasizing the importance of wearing face masks to contain the spread of the virus, alongside hand-washing and social distancing. However, Texas has neglected to take these precautions seriously. Now, lifting this mandate has only increased people’s irresponsible actions and validated putting other lives in danger. Even president Joe Biden called this executive order “dangerous” and said it was a “big mistake” (The Texas Tribune). In addition to this, 3 out of the 4 Abbott’s coronavirus medical advisers say that they were not directly consulted before he lifted the mandate (The Texas Tribune). This shows that Abbott does not know the proper health regulations and medical knowledge, yet he made this decision with no consultation of health officials or any advice. This was a very bad move from him especially when Texas was just healing from a major flooding disaster. Greg Abbott just put Texas in further danger and at risk.
While there is not much we can do in this case, we can continue doing our part in this pandemic and keep wearing masks, social distancing. If you are planning to take the vaccine, get that done soon, if available to you. We can also continue to try to reach out to the Governor through social media, emails, and other ways, which can add enough pressure to make a safe decision for Texas. Additionally, we can continue to support small businesses in Texas, especially the ones run by marginalized communities and people of color
