Dr. Fauci Takes Subtle Swipe at Texas After End of Mask Mandate

Texas has long been a state unto itself here in America.  Both fiercely independent and unafraid to show it, the Lone Star State has often done things a little more boldly than the rest of the nation, and that has been no different as we enter the beginning of the end of the coronavirus crisis.

Just last week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that the statewide mask mandate would be lifted, and that businesses would again be allowed to open up to full capacity.

Abbott took a great deal of heat from COVID-19 stalwarts who believed that Texas hadn’t done their due diligence in making that decision.

Dr. Anthony Fauci was among the critics, albeit subtly.

From an appearance on “Face The Nation”:

BRENNAN: You recently warned that the country could be at risk for another infection spike. Are you worried about a fourth wave of this epidemic?

DR. FAUCI: Well, my concern, Margaret, is based on the fact that although the cases are coming down very nicely, you have a very sharp diminution, over the past week and a half or so, we’ve seen that that decline has now done this, essentially starting to plateau. And historically, if you look back at the different surges we’ve had, when they come down and then start to plateau at a very high level, plateauing at a level of 60 to 70,000 new cases per day is not an acceptable level. That is really very high. And if you look at what happened in Europe a few weeks ago, they’re usually a couple of weeks ahead of us in these patterns, they were coming down too, then they plateaued. And over the last week or so, they’ve had about a 9% increase in cases. So the message we’re saying is that we do want to come back carefully and slowly about pulling back on mitigation methods. But don’t turn that switch on and off because it really would be risky to have yet again another surge, which we do not want to happen because we’re plateauing at a- quite a high level. Sixty to 70,000 new infections per day is quite high.

Fauci has been adamant that masks are the key to preventing the spread of coronavirus, and the Texas decision will undoubtedly be something that he keeps an eye on.