Texas Governor Greg Abbott told reporters he is considering lifting the statewide coronavirus mask mandate. The governor said he is also considering stopping other statewide COVID-19 related orders.
During a news conference in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Thursday, Governor Abbott responded to a question about when he would end the statewide mandate requiring the wearing of masks.
The governor called it a “great question,” the Texas Tribune reported. “We’re working right now on evaluating when we’re gonna be able to remove all statewide orders, and we will be making announcements about that pretty soon.”
Other statewide mandates include business restrictions in hospital regions where COVID-19 patients exceed 15 percent of the hospital’s capacity for seven days, the article continues. That policy went into effect in the fall.
The announcement came as Governor Abbott announced the deployment of more than 1,100 Texas National Guardsmen to help vaccinate seniors who are homebound, Breitbart News reported.
“The good news is there’s going to be a record amount of vaccines available across Texas this week with increasing numbers going forward,” Abbott said. “We’re going to have the capability to … apply vaccines very, very quickly for our seniors as well as additional populations, so that we increasingly, week by week, will be increasing the immunity that Texans have.”
Currently, just over five percent of Texans have received full COVID-19 vaccinations. The statewide effort stopped in its tracks during the record-setting winter storm.
Abbott said he is optimistic that the pace will pick up as more vaccines become available to Texas, the Texas Tribune stated.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s Sunday-morning talk show, What’s Your Point? Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, Parler @BobPrice, and Facebook.