Texas and Mississippi Governors’ Lifting of Mask Mandates Is a Gift to the Coronavirus

This is exactly what public health experts have warned against.

Bob Daemmrich/Zuma

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

In a contradiction of federal guidance, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves announced Tuesday that their states will lift their respective mask mandates and allow businesses to operate at full capacity.

“I just announced Texas is OPEN 100%.” Abbott tweeted. “EVERYTHING.” Minutes later, Reeves posted a similar tweet: “Our hospitalizations and case numbers have plummeted, and the vaccine is being rapidly distributed. It is time!”

As I wrote last month, this is exactly what public health experts have warned against doing, given the possibility of a surge in cases driven by new coronavirus variants. While there is reason to be hopeful—vaccines are here—now isn’t the time to let our guard down, they said. In fact, they told me, easing restrictions now could give the virus even more opportunity to accumulate dangerous mutations.

I talked to three experts: Joseph Fauver, a genomic epidemiologist and associate research scientist at the Yale School of Public Health, Sarah Otto, an evolutionary biologist and a professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia, and John Swartzberg, a clinical professor emeritus specializing in infectious diseases and vaccinology at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. They told me that relaxing restrictions now could seriously impede our progress in fighting the virus:

Even with a more transmissible virus, all three experts agree, hope is not lost. “My answer is to continue doing what we know works, which is wearing a mask, social distancing, not spending unmasked time indoors with people outside of your immediate household or your bubble, what have you,” Fauver says.

“My view of it is that if we have more transmissible strains than the standard strains circulating now, it means that we need to double down on everything we do to prevent getting infected,” Swartzberg says, echoing Fauver. For instance, Swartzberg says he’s considering going grocery shopping a little less often and combining trips to the pharmacy. “You just have to be upping the ante right now.”

Vaccinations are also key. The faster we vaccinate, the fewer chances these variants have to potentially spread and evolve. “How can we keep our vaccines working for longer?” Otto says. “We can bring the case numbers down, give evolution less opportunity.” Data is limited, but so far, it seems our vaccines are effective against the new variants, although possibly not to the same degree as with previous versions.

Federal officials have issued similar warnings. As Dr. Anthony Fauci explained on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, “Right now, as we are going down [in COVID cases] and plateauing is not the time to declare victory—because we are not victorious yet…particularly with the variants that are circulating in various parts of the country.” And on Friday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said, “Things are tenuous. Now is not the time to relax restrictions.”

Texas’ policy change will go into effect next week. Mississippi’s goes into effect tomorrow. 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate