Anna Shvets
April 16, 2020
MADDY REMINGTON
managing editor
Over 500,000 deaths, and 1 year later, Texas is reopening 100% and eliminating mask mandates.
What kind of precedent does this set when half a million people are dead, and we are acting like everything is fine and dandy?
I’m sick of Texans acting like this pandemic isn’t serious. We are nowhere near back to business as usual, yet tons of people are going out in public for unnecessary reasons, violating physical distancing protocols and not wearing masks.
What part of wearing a simple piece of fabric on your face and standing farther away is too complex for you all to understand?
This COVID-19 thing is no joke. People are being hospitalized, coming out with serious long-term and short-term effects or even dying,
for God’s sake.
If you are hanging out with your friends and not following safety protocols, I hate to break it to you, but you are the problem.
Just because vaccines are in distribution doesn’t mean this pandemic is over. We are still fighting it.
Only 5.1% of Texans have even been vaccinated. Herd immunity is only achieved at 70–80% vaccination rates. For the sake of the frontline workers, for the sake of the immunocompromised among us, for the sake of you, your friends, family and coworkers: please stay home and wear your mask.
Don’t risk all the progress we have made in the past year on a chance to go out to eat or hang out with your friends. There are ways to safely do all of those things.
Zoom meetings exist for this very reason — to allow you to make connections and stay social.
Wearing a mask while in public, no matter if you are inside or outside, is crucial to the eradication of the pandemic.
Please, I beg you to continue following COVID-19 safety protocols so we can get back to normal sooner rather than later. Just because they are no longer mandated by the state doesn’t mean they are any less important.
