Vaccine Or Mask Mandates…

Fueled by the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus, rising Texas hospitalizations rates have spread outside of the heavily populated metro areas that first began to report increases a few weeks ago. https://t.co/kZ2mgb7F0L

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) July 30, 2021

are out of the question:

In Mount Pleasant, the COVID unit at Titus could typically handle 21 patients — but the facility now only has the nursing staff to cover 6 of those beds, Scoggin said. Transferring new patients to a nearby facility is out of the question, he said. Those who can’t fit in the COVID unit are in the ICU, or the emergency department, or isolated in the labor-and-delivery unit, but that’s not a long-term solution, he said.

“I don't see another hospital within another 100 miles in a better situation,” Scoggin said.

Henderson said he spoke with a chief nursing officer north of Waco who said that her staff is near collapse after a physically and emotionally exhausting 16 months of fighting the pandemic.

That region, which includes Hill and McLennan counties, has seen one of the sharpest increases in COVID hospitalization rates in the state, according to state health numbers. On July 1, nearly 2% of hospitalizations in the region were COVID patients. By July 27, that had climbed to nearly 10%. Hill County ranks in the bottom half of the state for vaccinated residents. 

That’s East Texas. What about central Texas, in a town you may have heard of:

We’re less than three weeks away from Fall 2021 orientation at UT — where, thanks to @GovAbbott, we’re not allowed to require our students to wear masks (let alone get vaccinated) even as we return to have fully in-person classes. https://t.co/3T7br7YgI1

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) July 30, 2021

Abbott lives there. Maybe he expects to get first dibs if he needs it. Maybe he just doesn’t give a shit about his neighbors. Or about the parents of school children:

“I feel like a trapped animal that can't do anything to protect her babies.”

With school openings near, parents and teachers say state leaders have stripped them of weapons against COVID-19. https://t.co/tnGxdnCRLH

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) July 31, 2021

Austin is not close to the border. Mt. Pleasant is a long, long way from Val Verde County.   Nor are school children likely to encounter immigrants. I suspect this has a lot more to do with vaccination rates than with brown people. And again, I don’t understand what the endgame is.  Maybe Abbott is counting on us all forgetting this by 2022. But the way things are going, we may still be suffering from it then.