In Texas, masking and vaccines are a personal choice. The consequences aren't.

AP: "Gov. Greg Abbott appealed for out-of-state help to fight the third wave of COVID-19 in Texas while two more of the state’s largest school districts announced mask mandates in defiance of the governor."

And there you have the "vaccines/masks are a personal choice" argument in a nutshell. Clearly it's not -- if protecting yourself was purely a "personal choice," you'd personally bear responsibility for the outcomes. That's not the case. Your trip to the hospital affects that hospital, clearly, and if enough other people make the same choice, then that hospital in turn needs to call for help from out-of-state nurses. The ripple effects are plain to see.

That's why stuff like this is so silly.


Right now, Abbott is asking Texas hospitals to delay elective surgeries. If you're vaxxed, your choices are constrained by the decisions of the unvaxxed. It's not the worst problem posed by the surge in hospitalizations, of course, but it does mean that the vaxxed can't simply go on their way and disregard what's happening among the unvaxxed. 

Comments

Ashok said…
Abbott already recognizes that this is a major, major crisis about to get a whole lot worse. What happens when every fundamentalist school starts meeting regularly?

I'm angry with him, angry with the GOP and Fox, but there might not be time for the anger. This talking point might only last a few days, because things are about to get so much worse.
August 10, 2021 at 7:24 PM
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