As San Diego inches toward the less restrictive Red COVID tier and Governor Newsom is being pressured to open up more of California, the city of Austin Texas, the state capitol, is heading into a showdown.
It's a showdown over masks. Today is the day that Texas Governor Abbott’s order to end the statewide mask mandate takes effect, after saying last week it was time to reopen Texas 100-percent.
Well, the city leaders and public health officials in Austin, where the Texas governor’s offices are located, have announced that residents there will still be required to wear face masks, announcing that if state officials don’t want to protect people from the virus, then they will.
And as Texans like to say, they mean business. The public health officer in Austin saying that if someone “enters a business that requires a mask and is not wearing a mask, and they are asked to leave and they do not, they’re trespassing…and that’s a crime they can be arrested for.”
The governor of Texas is being accused by critics there of caring more about politics than science by opening up his state. Here in California, Governor Newsom has heard the same criticism over not opening up enough of the state fast enough.
The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci recently told many of the country’s mayors that in his several decades of doing his job he has never seen a virus crisis become politicized the way that this coronavirus has.
Makes you wonder if decades from now, that’s how the pandemic of 2020 will be most remembered.
(Photo Getty Images)
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