Oh For Fuck's Sake!

This week, COVID-19 hospitalizations reached higher levels across Texas than when Gov. Greg Abbott imposed a statewide mask mandate in July 2020.

Abbott has said he will not revive the mask mandate and has banned local officials from issuing one. https://t.co/HQgAy0W9rq

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) August 10, 2021

“This surge is by far the fastest and most aggressive that we've seen. Almost all of our hospitalizations are due to unvaccinated patients developing severe illness,” Dr. Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis County’s health authority, told reporters last week. “ICU staff are seeing a younger population in our hospitals. Patients in the ICU are sicker and stay in the hospital longer than with prior surges, putting more strain on hospital resources.”

Around 87.1% of all hospital beds in Texas are in use — the highest level since the start of the pandemic — with 14.1% of those beds occupied by COVID-19 patients. When Gov. Greg Abbott began to relax some COVID-19 restrictions on businesses in October, his order maintained reduced restaurant capacity and kept bars closed in regions in which 15% or more of hospital beds were filled with COVID-19 patients.

This week, COVID-19 hospitalizations reached higher levels across the state than when Abbott imposed a statewide mask mandate in July 2020. Abbott has maintained that he will not be reviving the mask mandate and has barred local authorities from issuing their own.

“Governor Abbott has been clear that we must rely on personal responsibility, not government mandates,” Abbott press secretary Renae Eze said in a statement on Monday. “Every Texan has a right to choose for themselves and their children whether they will wear masks, open their businesses, or get vaccinated.”

Is it my personal responsibility if I fire off a gun in the city?  Drive down the street regardless of traffic laws?  Walk around in public clothed or unclothed, as I prefer?  Use my front yard as a toilet instead of my bathroom?  Don't I have a "right to choose"?

And, of course, Abbott just signed a seriously restrictive abortion bill aimed at getting the Supremes to eviscerate Roe.  "Right to choose" is a very loosely defined term, eh?

It's like we've put the bullies in charge, and their idea of governance is "Fuck all y'all!"

Funny thing, too:  the "right to choose" of all those idiots who won't get vaccinated or wear masks, has effects on the rest of us, and not just indirectly by spreading more disease and encouraging more variants:

“We need to make sure that there's beds and hospitals and staff in hospitals available to take care of people who don't just have COVID-19, but … all of those other conditions,” said Dr. Jennifer Shuford, chief state epidemiologist for the Texas Department of State Health Services. “As we see hospitalizations increasing at this rapid rate, we are afraid that we're going to stress hospitals to the point that they can't take care of some of those other people who are coming in to the hospital for a stroke or a heart attack or any number of other things.”

And the cruelty to the children seems to be a feature, not a bug:

Dr. David Callender, president and CEO of Memorial Hermann Health System, a 17-hospital system spanning southeast Texas, said the “onslaught” of people hospitalized with COVID-19 during the recent surge could overwhelm its capacity if the current trend continues.

The system now has more than 800 people hospitalized with COVID-19, with nearly a third of its ICU beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, he said. At times, he said hospitals have had no pediatric ICU beds available and had to transport young patients across the state or even out of the state. 

O, sinner man, where you gonna run to?