Governor Greg Abbott of the US State of Texas has announced that his state will join Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, and North Dakota in cancelling mask mandates. Texas will apparently unmask and all restrictions on businesses will end on 10 March, the other four states’ mask mandates have already ended.
Governor Abbott’s Executive order, “GA34, Opening Texas response to COVID disaster”, dated 03-02-2021, can be read from this link.
by Micheal John
Governor Abbott Lifts Mask Mandate, Opens Texas 100 Percent. Photo Credit: Office of the Governor of Texas.
Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
Related: Warning signs that mutated virus may get the best of us.
Abbott explained his reasoning. It’s about the economy, Abbott makes that clear, but the experts say it will cost lives.
“With the medical advancements of vaccines and antibody therapeutic drugs, Texas now has the tools to protect Texans from the virus,” he said.
US President Biden told the media today from the Oval office, “The last thing—the last thing we need is the Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything’s fine, take off your mask. Forget it. It still matters.”
Restoring Livelihoods is the priority of Abbott
“We must now do more to restore livelihoods and normalcy for Texans by opening Texas 100 percent. Make no mistake, COVID-19 has not disappeared, but it is clear from the recoveries, vaccinations, reduced hospitalizations, and safe practices that Texans are using that state mandates are no longer needed.”
Meanwhile, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, (Republican as is Abbott) said in response to the quashing of mandates, that “it is premature action”.
“I am calling on Governor Abbott to open up additional vaccine tier categories so that more people are eligible to get a vaccine if they want one,” said Mayor Price.
“As the state’s directive has changed, so must our response. Now, more than ever, vaccines and testing must be readily available.”
“We need to focus not on what the governor tells you the law allows, but what doctors and the facts and the science that we all know well at this point tell us is necessary to keep us safe and give us our best chance of reaching herd immunity as quickly as possible,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said about the unmasking of Texas.
“It’s completely too soon,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of California at San Francisco, told the Business Insider.
“We’ve been very clear that now is not the time to release all restrictions. The next month or two is really pivotal,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
“Today we are at a critical nexus in the pandemic. So much can turn in the next few weeks.”
CDC Photo: Dr. Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director
“Things are tenuous. Now is not the time to relax restrictions,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director said Friday. “Although we have been experiencing large declines in cases and hospital admissions over the past six weeks, these declines follow the highest peak we have experienced in the pandemic.”
2021-02-26 19:05:15 GMT ~ Photo Credit: CDC. ~ Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine Read: Warning signs that mutated virus may get the best of us.
Some governors believe healthy people wearing good FFP masks well-fitted can go to work and attend gatherings of limited numbers of mask-wearing participants.
Monique Deslauriers, a nurse practitioner in Calais, Maine and occasional correspondent to FPM.news explains that her state has a woman governor, Janet T. Mills, who has been firm on protecting the people of Maine. A statewide order mandating controls in gatherings and mask wearing first came into play on 1 May 2020, explains Deslauriers.
“Then the executive order was strengthened on 4 November 2020, and that order stands today with more stringent stipulations,” she explains.
“People in Maine are generally happy with the ideas. They are not onerous, just sensible. We are not a big state and don’t need to be hanging around with 50 people,” she added.
(Read if you wish: An Order in Maine to Revise Indoor Gathering Limits and Strengthen Face Covering Requirements and Delegate Certain Authority.)
Nurse in Taiwan says people there have been wearing FFP masks since the SARS1 crisis in 2003 without any troubles.
Kathy Poon, who worked as a nurse in China through the early 2020 novel coronavirus outbreak, says her parents who are doctors tell her about the SARS1 experience and she has grown up with a mask-wearing public.
“Pollution is really about toxins in the air, so maybe SARS1 did us a favour by convincing us to protect our respiratory systems. In Beijing I have never seen a day when many people were not wearing KN95 respirators. These KN95 respirators I like more than the American items. The KN-95 requirement includes a filter to stop 0.1 micron particles, and yet be very easy to breath through,” she explained in a Zoom call.
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American COVID-19 statistics have plateaued at a very high level as the more deadly and more transmissible mutations of the virus enter the country. from Brazil, South Africa and England. Source Civil Society Partners in Solidarity against COVID-19
Dynamic Data Follows for 2 Dec 2024
Source Civil Society Partners in Solidarity against COVID-19
COVID-19 Sum of Active Cases, 25 Highest Locales
USA 60.24 % of global ‘active’ cases (8,652,313 USA / 14,363,820 Global)
Updated: 2021-03-03 Time 17:28:04 GMT ~ Source: Civil Society Partners in Solidarity against COVID-19