Southern Republican Governors Have a License to Kill
The Texas state education agency issues guidelines for the fall semester that facilitate the spread of the Coronavirus (Texas Education Agency)
August 8, 2021
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH
The Southern Republican Governors’ atrocities inflicted on their state residents due to their siding with COVID in the battle against the pandemic are far too many to cover in one commentary. Although Arkansas GOP Governor Asa Hutchinson has finally caught on to the importance of masking and vaccinations, most of the other Red State governors, particularly in the South (although Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota is doing her part by promoting the Sturgis motorcycle rally), are enabling COVID-caused infection, hospitalization, and death, particularly breaking records in Florida and Texas.
Worse yet, in terms of these governors being superspreaders and guilty of creating unnecessary infection, hospitalization and death, students and teachers cannot be required to be vaccinated against COVID, even though both states require other vaccinations for school attendance.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (who uses his pro-virus stance for fundraising, including such mocking items such as “Don’t Fauci My Florida” swag) lead the way among Southern governors in politically weaponizing vaccination and masking, forbidding any mandates despite a Republican Party long advocating local control and decision-making.
Examples abound, but take note of this one paragraph from a news article,
In a sign that the delta variant is affecting more children on a daily basis, a baby in Texas has contracted COVID-19, and she had to be airlifted to a hospital 150 miles away because there were no ICU beds for her at the pediatric hospital in Houston
A similar explosion in pediatric and adult cases is taking place in Florida. According to CNN,
In Florida, which has the second-highest rate of new cases per capita after Louisiana, children's hospitals and staff are "overwhelmed," said Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease expert at Florida International University.
"The numbers of cases in our hospitals in children and our children's hospitals are completely overwhelmed," Marty told CNN's Jim Sciutto on Friday evening.
"Our pediatricians, the nursing, the staff are exhausted, and the children are suffering. And it is absolutely devastating ... our children are very much affected. We've never seen numbers like this before," she said.
Texas and Florida make up the two states with the largest COVID surges (Florida has more than 1/5 of the recent infections alone), as their governors pursue a license to kill, acting as Pied Pipers, leading unvaccinated children to infection and hospitalization. The death rate for adults, particularly those in the 25-55 age group is surging.
It is hard to fathom how Abbott and DeSantis get away with a license to kill by forbidding masking, limited promotion of vaccination, vaccine passports, and the right of local schools to determine if masking is an appropriate public health measure. As noted earlier, these GOP governors are reversing a Republican mantra of hands-off local educational control (and also business ability to make choices on COVID, such as requiring vaccinations for cruises) by threatening to withhold subsidies to any school district that requires masking. (The governor of Tennessee has adopted the same stance.)
Abbott is even prohibiting school districts from informing parents of infected students in schools, even though it is required to report outbreaks of lice. The Texas Education Agency (the state board) is not requiring contact tracing of infected teachers and adults, thus enabling further spread of the virus. Abbott is also not requiring quarantining of any student or teacher in close contact to someone who is infected.
If the COVID virus has defense lawyers, they would be working for governors like Abbott and DeSantis. in fact they are, as their states are sued on multiple fronts in their promotion of COVID spread.
The deaths caused by 007 and his license to kill are minuscule compared to the case count for Abbott, DeSantis and other Red State governors and legislatures.
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