When a spokesman for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Tuesday night that the man leading his state's open embrace of the latest coronavirus surge had, himself, contracted coronavirus, it was largely met with the sort of schadenfreude and derision typically reserved for former presidents with the last name "Trump." But behind the obvious irony of a man who enthusiastically barred communities from doing one of the few things shown to mitigate the pandemic's spread being infected by that same virus, Abbott's (non)handling of his state's increasingly catastrophic uptick in cases is, itself, a perfect microcosm of how conservative politicians in America have turned their states into disease epicenters.
"We are entering the worst surge in sheer numbers," Dr. Mark Casanova of the Texas Medical Association's COVID-19 Task Force told the Texas Tribune on Wednesday. "This is the fourth round of what should have been a three-round fight. We do have very sincere concerns that the numbers game is going to overwhelm us."
