On March 2, Governor Greg Abbott entered a Mexican restaurant in Lubbock wearing a black cloth mask. As he waited to be introduced, Abbott adjusted the ear loops and gave a small tug on the fabric covering his mouth. A moment later, perhaps remembering what he was there to do, he took his mask off. The Virgin of Guadalupe looked at him from a painting that hung over his shoulder.
“Personal vigilance to follow the safe standards is still needed to contain COVID. It’s just that now state mandates are no longer needed,” Abbott said. Vaccines had begun to roll out, and hospitalization rates in the state had fallen by more than half since a peak of 14,000 patients in January. So Abbott announced that he was lifting the statewide mask mandate and all remaining public health restrictions on Texas businesses.
In the wake of his announcement, Abbott’s decision was widely condemned by public health experts across the country, who pointed out that more than 90 percent of Texans still hadn’t been fully vaccinated and that new variants were spreading across the state. The governor’s order allowed local officials to enact their own restrictions if COVID-19 hospitalization rates exceeded 15 percent, but with toothless enforcement, those powers were effectively useless.
