It is somewhat ironic that in conservative Republican states, like Texas, these days the right to live your life in a way that makes you more likely to catch the COVID virus and pass it on to others is seen as a right to live your life or die how and when you choose. The "right to die" culture in Texas is strong. "Choose Life" in Texas has nothing to do with abortion these days.
The Washinton Post described it this way:
"At a Mexican restaurant in Lubbock this week, Gov. Greg Abbott (R)proclaimed that he would issue an executive order to open Texas up “100 percent” starting next week — including, as he told a cheering crowd, ending a statewide mask mandate. “People and businesses don’t need the state telling them how to operate,” he said.
Last March, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that grandparents in Texas should be willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the state’s economy. When Abbott reopened the state in May, the move quickly resulted in a spike of cases, and he was forced to backtrack."
The next thing we will hear from Gov. Abbott is that everyone in Texas has a right to freeze in the winter if that is what they want rather than have to government tell them how to winterize their energy grid.
P.S.
Maryland has to be cautious in reopening as we are only one of two states, Florida being the other one, that has recorded one case of all 3 of the variant strains of the virus. Since the variants are the cause of most of the concern about the spread of the virus it might make sense to prioritize the distribution of the vaccines to those areas with the highest rate of the variants beyond what would be allocated based on population alone. Microtargeting of the vaccine distribution would make sense if we had a rational federal response to vaccine distribution. Unfortunately the virus is able to move faster than our uncoordinated governmental actions.
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