[ad_1]
The US state of Texas is removing the mask requirement and capacity limits for restaurants and other businesses introduced due to the pandemic. “Now is the time to open Texas 100 percent,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday. The time of restrictions on the economy is over in view of the ongoing vaccination campaign. “It has to end,” Abbott said. The mask lift requirement and capacity limits will apply starting Wednesday.
The head of the US health authority, CDC, had only warned on Monday not to prematurely lift the crown’s requirements. Now is not the time for that, he warned. Renowned crown expert Ashish Jha of Brown University in Providence commented on Twitter that with the lifting of crown requirements, Governor Abbott was “taking a great risk to people’s lives.”
Millions of doses of vaccines have already been administered.
The number of new infections in the US has dropped dramatically since the beginning of the year, from more than 200,000 a day to an average of more than 60,000. However, experts warn that there could be another increase due to new variants of the virus.
In Texas, 5.7 million doses of vaccine have already been administered, according to Abbott. The number of vaccines will now continue to increase by about a million a week, he promised. When the requirements were removed, Abbott relied on estimates of the number of unreported infections that had already been exceeded. So far, there have been 2.5 million confirmed infections in Texas. In reality, about 10 million people may already have had an infection, he speculated.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves is also heavily reliant on vacancies. He also said that starting Wednesday all masks and capacity restrictions for restaurants and businesses would end. “Now is the time,” wrote the Republican on Twitter. About three million people live in the state. (cat / SDA)
