The Texas Attorney General on Wednesday threatened to sue Austin and Travis County officials if they did not lift local mask warrants. The announcement comes after Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order last week to lift the state mask mandate, despite warnings from health officials about the premature reopening amid the Coronavirus pandemic.
The governor’s executive order, which went into effect Wednesday, also lifted capacity restrictions on state-owned enterprises. It allowed local officials to impose “mitigation strategies” if hospitalizations increase, but forbade them from punishing residents who challenge the orientation of masks and limiting business capacity to less than 50%. Private companies may still require masks at their facilities, but are no longer required to do so according to the governor.
Despite Abbot’s executive order, Attorney General Ken Paxton said Wednesday in a letter that officials in the city of Austin (and the county that contains it) stated that wearing masks when they are away from home will continue unabated. ” He addressed the letter to Travis County Judge Andy Brown and Austin Mayor Steve Adler. both of us they have said local mask mandates will remain in place.
“The decision to require masks or impose COVID-19-related operating limits is expressly reserved for private companies on their own premises,” Paxton said. “It does not apply to jurisdictions such as the city of Austin or Travis County or its local health authorities. Nor do they have the authority to threaten fines for noncompliance.”
Paxton said officials had until 6 p.m. Wednesday to “terminate local mask warrants or business operating restrictions, withdraw any related public statements and fully comply.” [the executive order]. ”
“Otherwise, on behalf of the State of Texas, I will sue you,” he said.
In response to Paxton’s letter, Mayor Adler said he and Brown “would fight the assault on Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paxton against doctors and data for as long as we can.”
“Wearing masks is perhaps the most important thing we can do to curb the spread of COVID-19, to open even more schools to more students for face-to-face learning and to open more and more companies, minimizing the risk of any need to withdraw “Adler said.
Abbott’s executive order drew immediate criticism after it was announced. Health officials have been urging local leaders not to reopen too quickly for weeks, given the daily count of cases and the number of new ones. COVID-19 variants.
“Please listen to me clearly: at this level of cases, with the spread of variants, we are completely losing the hard-won ground. These variants are a real threat to our people and to our progress,” he said. say CDC director Rochelle Walensky. the day before Abbott announced his order.
“Now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards we know can stop the spread of COVID-19 in our communities,” Walensky added.
Shortly after Abbott announced his order, President Biden said yes “Neanderthal thought” believing that “in the meantime, all is well, take off your masks.”
“I hope everyone has noticed that these masks make a difference,” Biden said. “We are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way we can get vaccines in people’s arms. We’ve been able to move it to the end of May be enough for every The last, last thing we need is for Neanderthals to think that in the meantime everything is fine, take off your masks, forget about it. and that matters. “
When announcing his executive order, Abbott noted a sharp drop in the number of daily cases after an increase during the holidays and said the number of cases was at its lowest point since November. But even then, COVID-19 cases were still at an alarming level and Abbott resisted calls to implement stricter preventive measures.
As of Wednesday, Texas reported more than 2.3 million cases of the virus and more than 44,000 deaths, according to data from the state Department of Health.
Alexander Tin and Kathryn Watson contributed to the information.