The only stricken migrants are among the 100 individuals belonging to families that had been separated and are now being reunited. They are offered quarantine accommodations. In any case, their numbers rather pall in the face of the 29 million Texans whom Abbott has unleashed, maskless, upon the strip malls and bars of the Lone Star state.
Abbott took these radical steps just as the U.S. faces a possible Fourth Wave of COVID-19 infections and deaths, which will be driven by deadlier forms of the virus such as the British B.1.1.7 variant.
Abbott did not bother to consult with three of the four members of his medical advisory team, and one of them, Mark McClellan, vehemently disagreed with the governor's actions. He is a former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University. Abbott? Abbott is an attorney.
The British coronavirus variant is taking off. More transmissible and deadlier than the version 1.0 that is now widespread in the United States, is likely to become the dominant variant in the United States in the coming months. It is already 25% of new cases in Florida, and its spread will be facilitated by Republican governor Rick DeSantis's similar lifting of restrictions and his encouragement of spring breakers.
As with Abbott's promotion of planet-wrecking fossil fuels and denial of human-caused climate change, he has taken a stand against science that harms the American people, in order to promote narrow business interests.
Unfortunately, this stance is increasingly just the platform of the Republican Party.
Bonus Video:
Greg Abbott might have surrendered, but Texans don't have to. (The Last Word w/ Lawrence O'Donnell)
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