Public Shaming Needed
To the Editor:
Instead of promising to lift his statewide mask order if and when at least 80% of the people of Texas are vaccinated against the coronavirus, why has our own Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, prematurely and dangerously ended his own state-wide mask order while Texas averages over 200 reported coronavirus deaths per day over the last week, especially now that far more contagious variants of the coronavirus have been found in Texas? Why has this Republican Governor refused to understand that the universal wearing of masks in public during this pandemic would save both lives and livelihoods? Why have practically all GOP lawmakers refused to publicly protestAbbott’s premature and dangerous decision?
Unfortunately, only about two out of 20 Texans have received the vaccine so far and so Texas is a long way from having at least 70% to 80% of the people of Texas vaccinated in order to achieve “herd immunity” Given the number of children under age 16 in Texas that equates to needing all adults in Texas to be vaccinated with far too many extreme right wing Republicans refusing to be vaccinated and refusing to wear masks. That unconscionable refusal will only serve to enable the variants of the coronavirus, which the Pfizer and Modem vaccines have so far been effective against, to mutate into far more contagious and deadly variants causing the otherwise avoidable loss of even more lives.
Why do our local Republican leaders fail to make it absolutely clear through public appearances and public service announcements in newspapers and radio and text messages that, even if one is vaccinated, one must continue to wear masks and socially distance until the US. attains the above plateau of vaccinations needed for herd immunity? Apparently, these GOP officials fail to realize that the vaccine only protects the person immunized and makes that person asymptomatic and safe but still capable of being contagious to others by no longer wearing a mask in public and thereby causing as much as 30% of the spread of more infection.
For a local public official to imply that only one having a cough must wear a mask during this pandemic or to suggest that COVID-19 now having killed more than 500,000 Americans with no immediate end of the killing in sight is just “another virus” is at best an abject act of ignorance that needlessly endangers the lives of others.
It is way past time to publicly shame those who show nothing but an abhorrent disrespect for the life and livelihoods of their fellow human beings by their refusal to wear a mask in public. It is difficult to fathom that our grandparents who experienced the Great Depression and our fathers who sacrificially fought in World War II and their families who suffered far more at home than the minor discomfort of wearing a mask in public would approve of such unpatriotic refusal.
It is also way past time to boycott businesses that refuse to exercise their legal right and moral obligation to refuse service to anyone refusing to wear a mask in public during this pandemic.
There is still time for voters to hold persons in fiduciary positions of leadership accountable at the voting booth for their egregious failure to publicly demand and require the wearing of masks until our country and our county attains life-saving “herd immunity” needed to end this pandemic.
John W. Mims
Fayetteville