This past Spring many Texans, recognizing the urgency of the pandemic, came together to help reduce the spread of coronavirus by working/schooling at home, not eating at restaurants or enjoying other public entertainment, and practicing physical distancing.
The efforts worked and we flattened our infection rate curve through early May when the regrettable decision to “re-open the state” was made with devastating consequences.
First, let’s correct the language. We didn’t need “re-open” since many businesses had made reasonable adjustments to policies and procedures to allow for safer interaction. Teachers still taught, students still learned, workers still worked. The rhetoric of “re-opening” was understood—perhaps not unreasonably—to be a license to return to pre-COVID practice.
We have had clear guidance from the White House on when strict stay-at-home and physical distancing should be practiced (until a 10-14 downward trend of positive cases and hospitalizations), and it is baffling to me why this guidance has been ignored to the peril of the people of Texas.
We likewise have clear guidance from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in the hierarchy of controls related to workplace hazards. The current plans being touted for return to school (at all levels) clearly disregard the NIOSH guidance in preferring in-person instruction when online eliminates the hazard of community spread.
There is a saying that the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago; the second best time is now. We cannot undo what is done, and the lives lost and forever wrecked by the decision to ignore the reasonable guidance of experts is something that must be dealt with by history and in each of our consciences.
I adjure you to stop playing with Texans’ lives to score political points, and make the right call to return to strict stay-at-home measures, including for our students this fall.
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