Biden Decries Caveman Mentality as Abbott
Ignores Top Doctors Opinions on Mask Edict

Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside
March 4, 2021

Governor Greg Abbott faced a firestorm of his own making on Wednesday when President Joe Biden portrayed him as "neanderthal" for the killing of a statewide mask mandate that his most prominent medical advisor believed should stay in place.

The backlash intensified today amid revelations that the Republican governor pulled the plug on the mask edict at a media event in Lubbock without consulting most if not all of his chief medical advisors in advance.

Abbott triggered an angry reaction among state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle after they were left in the dark on a major state policy decision that will have a direct effect on the public health in the districts that they represent. GOP legislators who'd been offended when they were caught off guard

The monumental policy shift was tantamount to a thumbing of the nose at Texas doctors, nurses and other health care professionals who've been under heavy strain on the front lines of the pandemic for an entire year.

Texas hospitals that have been pushed to the brink will be bracing again for another major potential surge that Abbott has invited with the spontaneous power play that will culminate in a higher number of deaths from covid infections than Texas could have expected with an adherence to the guidance of doctors and scientists like he'd promised at the outset of the crisis.

Biden and others contended that Abbott has undermined the nation's recovery from the contagion with reckless maneuvering that put the state in position for significant losses with no apparent potential benefits for anyone beside the governor himself.

Abbott issued Executive Order No. GA-34 at a photo op in Lubbock on Tuesday when he sought to tie the mask requirement to a simultaneous decison to fully reopen Texas by lifting all the emergency restrictions that he's imposed on businesses here in the past year.

The packaging was a slick public relations ploy that minimized or eliminated the potential for backlash within the Texas business establishment amid the gamble that it wouldn't bite the hand that feeds. The Abbott team sought to create the appearance of a united show of appearance from the Texas business establishment with an email that featured glowing reviews from Texas Association of Business, the Texas Restaurant Association and the National Federation of Independent Business.

The message was identical in all of the quotes that the governor's office packaged in a single email with statements that sounded prepackaged and warmed up with the central theme that Texas businesses owe Abbott a significant debt of gratitude for removing restrictions.

But none of business groups that lauded the reopening mentioned the decision to rescind the mask order that actually will be a hardship for many in the private sector including retailers like H-E-B where the prospects for disturbances with the potential for violence on their premises will soar as a result of the Abbott power play.

Abbott's maneuvering on masks has been widely viewed inside the statehouse beltway as a sign of desperation by an incumbent who'd been staggered by his part in the Texas power crash during a record freeze last month. Another growing school of thought at the Capitol is that Abbott is scrambling frantically to shore up his support among conservatives after receiving 0 percent of the vote in a straw poll at the CPAC conference in Orlando last weekend.

Biden suggested that Abbott probably had prolonged the pandemic in Texas by putting himself above the people of the state and the country.

"I hope everybody has realized by now these masks make a difference," Biden told reporters at the White House. "We are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way we are able to get vaccine in people’s arms. We’ve been able to move that all the way up to the end of may to have enough for every American, to get every adult American to get a shot."

Biden portrayed the Texas governor as a threat to the public health. "The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime everything's fine, take off your mask, forget it," he said. "It still matters."

Abbott had enlisted Austin native Mark McClellan to serve as one of four physician advisors on the coronavirus strike force. McClellan gave Abbott's team of pandemic advisors star power as a former FDA commissioner who's serves as the director at the Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University.

McClellan says he would have opposed the elimination of the mask mandate as a risky move at the worst possible time with the state still in fragile condition in the virus fight. But McClellan says he wasn't consulted on the decision. Fellow Abbott strike force doctor Parker Hudson - a professor at the University of Texas medical school in Austin - has acknowledged that he was left out of the decision-making process as well.

But Abbott found what he wanted to hear with former Texas House Republican John Zerwas - the only one of Abbott's four virus experts who had a discussion with the governor on the mask mandate repeal.

Zerwas - an executive vice chancellor for health affairs at the University of Texas System - says he advised Abbott that he didn't know if the timing for the mask order would be good or bad. But Zerwas offered Abbott an out - telling him it would be wise to keep stressing the need to be careful if did decide to cancel the mask mandate.

Zerwas had been one of the most powerful state lawmakers in Texas as the House Appropriations Committee chairman before stepping down for the job in academia in 2019. He hasn't said whether Abbott had an influence in his current position with the state. But Zerwas seemed to show that he knew he'd been appointed to the strike force to give marshmellow answers that justify whatever position Abbott would decide to take.


 

 

 

 

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