On Wednesday, the Texas attorney general threatened to sue authorities in Austin and Travis County if they did not suspend local mask authorizations. The announcement was made after Governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order last week to suspend the mask’s mandate across the state, despite warnings from health officials about reopening prematurely in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
The governor’s executive order, which took effect on Wednesday, also lifted capacity restrictions on state business. He allowed local authorities to impose “mitigation strategies” if hospitalizations increased, but he forbade them to punish residents who defied mask orientation and to limit business capacity to less than 50%. Private companies may still require masks at their facilities, but are no longer required to do so by the governor.
Despite Abbot’s executive order, Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a letter on Wednesday that officials in the city of Austin – and the county that contains it – declared that “local orders requiring individuals to wear masks outside their houses will remain unshakable “. He addressed the letter to Travis County Judge Andy Brown and Austin Mayor Steve Adler, both of which said that local masking mandates will remain in effect
“The decision to require masks or otherwise impose operational limits related to COVID-19 is expressly reserved for private companies in their own facilities,” said Paxton. “It is not up to jurisdictions like the city of Austin or Travis County or their local health officials. Nor do they have the authority to threaten fines for non-compliance.”
Paxton said employees had until 6pm on Wednesday to “terminate any local masking mandates or operational business restrictions, withdraw any related public statements and comply fully [the executive order]. ”
“Otherwise, on behalf of the State of Texas, I will sue you,” he said.
In response to Paxton’s letter, Mayor Adler said he and Brown would “fight the attack by Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paxton against doctors and data for as long as possible.”
“Wearing masks is perhaps the most important thing we can do to slow the spread of COVID-19, to open schools even more to more students for face-to-face learning and to open more and more businesses, minimizing the risk of any need to back out, “Said Adler.
Abbott’s executive order drew immediate criticism after it was announced. Health officials have been asking local leaders for weeks not to reopen too quickly, given daily case counts and the number of new ones COVID-19 variants.
“Please listen to me clearly: at this level of cases, with the variants spreading, we can completely lose the ground conquered with so much effort. These variants are a very real threat to our people and to our progress,” said Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC the day before Abbott announced his request.
“Now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards that we know can prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our communities,” added Walensky.
Shortly after Abbott announced his request, President Biden said it was “Neanderthal Thinking” believe that “while everything is fine, take off the masks”.
“I hope everyone has realized that these masks make a difference,” said Biden. “We are about to fundamentally change the nature of this disease due to the way we put vaccines in people’s arms. We managed to get this through to the end of May have enough for all Americans, so that all adult Americans have a chance. The last thing , the last thing we need is the Neanderthal thinking that, in the meantime, it’s okay, take off your masks, forget it. It still matters. “
In announcing his executive order, Abbott noted a sharp drop in the daily case count after an increase during the holidays, and said the case count was at its lowest point since November. But even then, the COVID-19 cases were still at an alarming level and Abbott was resisting calls to implement stricter preventive measures.
On Wednesday, Texas reported more than 2.3 million cases of the virus and more than 44,000 deaths, according to data from the state health department.
Alexander Tin and Kathryn Watson contributed to the report.