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Texas governor lifts coronavirus mask mandate and allows businesses to open at 100% capacity, despite health officials' warnings
CNN via MSN ^ | 03/02/2021 | Amir Vera

Posted on 03/02/2021 6:22:55 PM PST by SeekAndFind

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Tuesday he's lifting the mask mandate in Texas, even as health officials warn not to ease safety restrictions.

Abbott made the announcement during a Lubbock Chamber of Commerce event where he issued an executive order rescinding most of his earlier executive orders like the mask mandate.

Abbott said businesses of any type will be allowed to open 100% beginning March 10.

"Too many Texans have been sidelined from employment opportunities. Too many small business owners have struggled to pay their bills. This must end. It is now time to open Texas 100%," he said.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves also announced Tuesday the end to all county mask mandates and that businesses can reopen at 100% capacity. The new orders will go into effect Wednesday, Tate said.

"Our hospitalizations and case numbers have plummeted, and the vaccine is being rapidly distributed. It is time!," Reeves tweeted Tuesday.

Abbott's announcement comes as Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to drop across the country. However, health experts say relaxing restrictions now could lead to another surge, especially with the variants spreading.

In the last year, Texans have "mastered the daily habits to avoid getting Covid," Abbott said. As of Monday, 6.57% of Texans have been fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Abbott said Tuesday 5.7 million vaccine shots have been administered in the state, there is a surplus of personal protective equipment (PPE) and "10 million Texans have recovered from Covid."

"Removing state mandates does not end personal responsibility and caring for your family members, friends and others in your community," Abbott said. "People and businesses don't need the state telling them how to operate."

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: 1moretime; coronavirus; maskmandate; masks; reopening; searchandfind; texas
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To: nagant

That’s fine. Those who want to stay home, can stay home. That’s great. Those who don’t want to stay home, can go where they want. It’s a personal choice, as it should be.


21 posted on 03/02/2021 11:10:43 PM PST by Dave W
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To: nagant

But that will be their choice, as it should be.


22 posted on 03/03/2021 12:27:11 AM PST by Eleutheria5 ("The impossible happens all they time. You just have to believe." Will Robinson)
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To: nagant

Businesses will will be allowed to enforce their draconian mask and distancing mandates - forever if they want. They just won’t be allowed to call down the power of the state on us. Those that keep the mandates in place will just lose business to those that don’t.


23 posted on 03/03/2021 12:52:34 AM PST by fwdude (Pass up too many hills to die on, and you will eventually fall off the edge of the world.)
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To: fwdude

People are capable of looking out for their own interests. Those who are vulnerable will stay away. Those who fear spreading contagion to the vulnerable will stay away. Those who are not vulnerable will be allowed to have a life, even if it involves walking into a bar or a gym or a hair salon.

They could have been doing this from the getgo, only now there’s also a vaccine, and that means less vulnerable people in a steadily widening circle, and who are those 12% who got the vaccine first. Elderly? Front line workers? Do ya think? In a rational state like Texas, of course.

In a leftard pair o’ dice like California, those with political connections or who serve those with political connections. And they target the businesses that don’t contribute to their campaigns, not the businesses where contagion can be spread, and with arbitrary, destructive mandates.

But noo. Detractors would have us believe that cowboys are going to ride into town, both guns blazing, and sneeze all over everyone in the saloon, spreading disease wherever they go.


24 posted on 03/03/2021 2:11:37 AM PST by Eleutheria5 ("The impossible happens all they time. You just have to believe." Will Robinson)
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To: nagant

The brainwashing really took with you!


25 posted on 03/03/2021 4:31:13 AM PST by KobraKai
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To: nagant

If masks protect the wearer why do you care? (They don’t)

I have had it. I only know because my wife had a mild case of “flu” after her father tested positive because of a medical procedure. I had slightly dulled smell and dry sinuses for a few days. The numbers we have seen don’t include me and my immunity nor the countless like me.

Because of the monoclonal antibody infusions this thing in the cases where it gets bad is VERY treatable with VERY HIGH success rates.

The Vaccine makers are praying this thing is like the flu and they can sell us an annual vaccine. (Except J&J whose efficacy actually goes up over time) Natural immunity precludes this scam portion of the scamdemic.

Open it up. Open it all up. This has been like a slow motion pulling off of a full body bandaid on a very hairy man. Rip the damned thing off and get it over with.


26 posted on 03/03/2021 4:43:53 AM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
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To: nagant

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3939110/posts?page=8#8

Fatality rate = deaths divided by cases results in a fatality rate of 0.017%


Remind me what the regular flu death rate is again?

OMG, based on that we should wear masks forever!!


27 posted on 03/03/2021 4:49:52 AM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
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To: SecAmndmt

‘We have pandemics in other things, but those things don’t create a pretend justification for mail-in ballots.’

so half the world shut their economies down simply to justify mail in voting in the US...? New Zealand has a hard lockdown four months after the election just so voting in the US can be easier...?


28 posted on 03/03/2021 5:16:38 AM PST by IrishBrigade
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To: SeekAndFind

In 2020 Health Officials morphed into Enemy Of The People.


29 posted on 03/03/2021 5:26:41 AM PST by SisterK (Let the King of my heart Be the fire inside my veins)
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To: SeekAndFind

Let the rest of the dominoes fall. Time to ignore these “experts.”


30 posted on 03/03/2021 5:30:55 AM PST by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal the 16th Amendment)
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To: SeekAndFind
"Going backwards on safety measures will unfairly put retail employees back in the role of enforcing guidelines still recommended by the CDC and other public health advocates," Brewer's statement read.

No it won't. Absent government support, what business in their right mind will try to enforce a mask mandate or social distancing or any other precaution?

31 posted on 03/03/2021 5:50:29 AM PST by DoodleDawg
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To: nagant
So far Texas has vaccinated about 12% of residents with at least a first shot.

The governor said it was less than 6%.

32 posted on 03/03/2021 5:52:19 AM PST by DoodleDawg
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To: Texas Eagle

Free Beer! Tomorrow!


33 posted on 03/03/2021 6:09:47 AM PST by crusty old prospector
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To: crusty old prospector
I'm jus' sayin'.

This gives him time to wiggle out of it. I hope he doesn't. We'll see.

34 posted on 03/03/2021 6:16:35 AM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all.)
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To: SeekAndFind

“despite health officials’ warnings“

Somehow I knew it would be CNN when l saw that was part of the headline..somehow.


35 posted on 03/03/2021 6:44:09 AM PST by gibsonguy
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To: nagant
So far Texas has vaccinated about 12% of residents...Cases are sure to rise.

There's also people who have already had Covid-19, which adds at least another 10%, and probably a lot more. With vaccinations rolling out, case loads and hospitalizations should continue to fall rapidly.

Quarantines, lockdowns, closures and mandatory masks and social distancing bring their own problems, including deadly problems. Governor Abbott made the right decision. The time has come to return our schools, shopping and places of employment and recreation to normal condtions.

36 posted on 03/03/2021 7:32:31 AM PST by LuxAerterna
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To: SecAmndmt

“We’re done with the BS narrative. Masks don’t do squat but make people less healthy.”

I hear a huge choir singing, AAAAMEN, AAAAMEN, AAAAMEN, AMEN, AMEN!


37 posted on 03/03/2021 7:52:11 AM PST by RipSawyer (I'm all out of sarc tags.)
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To: SecAmndmt

“all the children 80-90% maskless.”

Children are immune but for the most vulnerable with compromised health.
They do not spread the ChiCom Virus either.

Good for those families who know the science and have common sense.


38 posted on 03/03/2021 8:08:58 AM PST by romanesq (TRUSTY THE PLAN! ChiCom Joe is the Plan? Escape censorship: https://gitmo.life/ 👹.)
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To: nagant

You assumption is based on the idea that most people will avoid crowds, because they are as scared as you are.

You could not be more wrong.


39 posted on 03/03/2021 10:19:36 AM PST by Jotmo (Whoever said, "The pen is mightier than the sword." has clearly never been stabbed to death.)
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To: LuxAerterna
 
 
The communistas in the state education agency are doubling down on the masking, so it's time for parents to step up and put the pressure on to change that if they so desire to get the schools back.
 
 

40 posted on 03/03/2021 12:04:27 PM PST by lapsus calami (What's that stink? Code Pink ! ! And their buddy Murtha, too!)
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