Abbott announced lifting the state’s mandatory mask mandate
On Tuesday afternoon, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, announced that he will sign an executive order that will end the state’s mandatory mask mandate and will thus help all those people whose businesses have suffered a tremendous loss due to the pandemic.
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He said:
“Too many Texans have been sidelined from employment opportunities. Too many small business owners have struggled to pay their bills. This must end. It is now time to open Texas 100%.
So today, I’m issuing a new executive order that rescinds most of the earlier executive orders. Effective next Wednesday, all businesses of any type are allowed to open 100%. That includes any type of entity in Texas. Also, I’m ending the statewide mask mandate.”
Abbott added:
“Today’s announcement does not abandon the safe practices that Texans have mastered over the past year. Instead, it’s a reminder that each person has their own role to play in their own personal safety as well as in the safety of others. It’s a reminder that individual safety is managed every day as a matter of personal responsibility rather than by government mandate. Individual responsibility is a corollary to individual freedom, we can have both.”
He explained that people needed to still follow the same standards in protecting themselves and others from exposure to the coronavirus:
“Texans should continue following medical advice on preventing COVID just as they do on other medical issues. That is exactly how Texans were able to deal with infectious diseases in the past, like H1N1. They followed safe practices, and they got medical treatment when it was needed.”
According to him, by next Wednesday, the state will receive about 7 million vaccine shots, and those being prioritized are those who are the “most likely to be hospitalized or lose their life because of exposure to COVID.”
He went on:
“By next Wednesday, over half of our seniors will have received a vaccine shot and by the end of this month, every senior who wants a vaccine shot will be able to get a vaccine shot. To help this effort I have already announced a statewide program called Save Our Seniors, along with that I deployed more than 1,100 national guard to assist local organizations to help our seniors get the shots they need. These efforts should ensure that we keep hospitalizations low in Texas. Importantly, the number of vaccines will continue to increase rapidly with additional supplies of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines as well as the new vaccine that’s come out by Johnson & Johnson, which is a one-shot vaccine, that Texas began administering today.
The vaccine supply is increasing so rapidly, Texas will soon expand the categories of people who are able to get them and some medical professionals say that within a few months, every Texan who wants a vaccine shot will be able to get a vaccine shot.”
Abbott also said that approximately 10 million Texans, or one-third of the state’s population, have had the coronavirus and have recovered:
“Almost 2.5 million Texans were lab-confirmed for having recovered from COVID. The CDC says that the real number of recoveries is typically four to five times the number of those who officially tested positive and recovered. Mathematically what that means is that approximately 10 million Texans, or really more, have recovered from COVID and have the proven ability to beat the disease.”
Yet, Abbott noted that Texans must be aware of the fact that the coronavirus was not magically over and that the disease has not “suddenly disappeared.”
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Source: dfw.cbslocal.com
