Our leaders welcomed crowds, sporting events. With COVID, they should’ve known better
I saw this headline in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Friday, and my anger rose: “Tarrant County’s spike of COVID-19 is the worst in Texas.”
I thought about how the leaders of Fort Worth and Arlington have thrown the doors open to tens of thousands of people during a pandemic, contrary to the advice of Tarrant County’s health experts.
Among the events: Major League Baseball’s National League Championship Series, the World Series, the Professional Bull Riders World Finals, the National Finals Rodeo and the Rose Bowl. And then there was Jerry Jones bragging about attendance at Dallas Cowboys games in Arlington.
All of this is contradictory to the recommendations of our own county public health department. Here are excerpts from the “Protect Tarrant County” plan posted by the department in mid-November:
Stay home advisory: Essential visits only: work, school, medical, pharmacy, grocery, takeout, deliveries.
Avoid gatherings indoors (more than six people) or outdoors (more than 10 people).
Avoid sporting events.
Avoid all non-essential travel.
How could folks like Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price and Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams — who I believe have the best interests of their constituents at heart — ignore that advice?
City officials were unhappy with the Star-Telegram for daring to write stories and editorials quoting experts about the dangers of events like the National Finals Rodeo. They touted all the steps that were taken to promote safety.
Yes, significant safety measures were in place. But, in the end, neither Price, nor Williams, nor anyone else could ultimately control what people did, and we ended up with a petri dish for COVID-19 in places like the Stockyards and the Fort Worth Convention Center.
I walked through the Convention Center to judge the effectiveness of the safety measures at the Cowboy Christmas event during the National Finals Rodeo. I wore a mask and didn’t linger anywhere. About 25 percent of people did not have masks on. I saw a law enforcement officer walk by people without masks and say nothing.
By no means do I promote something like the shutdowns we saw earlier in the pandemic. And by no means do I seek to dismiss the pain felt by local businesses and people who have lost jobs during the pandemic. But should we have cast aside the advice of our community’s health experts and invited thousands of people to town?
I spoke with a highly placed official in one of Fort Worth’s world-class health systems who feared the fallout of the National Finals Rodeo. We both knew that for political reasons, that person could say nothing publicly about those concerns.
So now, in addition to the economic pain, we have the pain of people who may have become sick unnecessarily, the pain of families who have lost loved ones, the overwhelming burden that has been placed on our health care workers.
I think of the column Barclay Berdan, chief executive officer of Texas Health Resources, wrote in November. He said, in part:
“And if you’re tired of telling people to wash their hands, tell them about our COVID-19 caregivers who make personal sacrifices every day so they can care for our community. The many nurses who arrive home exhausted after a long shift, strip off their scrubs in the garage before going inside, and then shower before even hugging their children and partners to keep them safe.
“Tell them about Jennifer, the nurse manager of a COVID-19 unit at Texas Health Dallas, who sent her twins to live with cousins on a ranch rather than expose them to the risk of contracting the virus. She went four months seeing her children only through FaceTime calls and even now allows herself only weekend visits.”
Can we say definitively that this spike is a direct result of our municipal leaders ignoring the advice of our health experts? No, because we’re now far beyond anything our contact tracing resources can keep up with. And certainly holiday gatherings are a major factor, too.
But simple logic tells me that all those events contributed. And simple wisdom says our leaders should have known better.
And then there are the observations of Benjamin Neuman, a professor of biology and chief virologist at Texas A&M University. He has tracked decisions made in Tarrant County closely and was quoted in Friday’s story about the spike that has made us the worst in Texas: “Basically the chickens have come home to roost, unfortunately.”
Yes, they have.
And we are left to pray for those who are sick, those who mourn and those who are overwhelmed — and for wisdom and courage for our leaders going forward.
This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 3:12 PM.
