We’ve sacrificed much to fight coronavirus. Don’t let bar crowds, school plans ruin it
The lockdown ended. The protests took center stage. But the coronavirus remains an acute danger — and it will for some time. So will the work to manage risk while trying to resume more parts of life.
As rates of illness spike and more hospital beds become occupied, that work is even more complicated.
Take the back and forth last week over whether Texas cities and counties can require masks in public. Gov. Greg Abbott rejected a call from local leaders, including the mayors of Fort Worth and Arlington, for such authority.
But then, Abbott allowed Bexar County (soon followed by others, including Dallas County) to order businesses to demand that customers wear a mask. And he suggested that Bexar leaders had cracked an elaborate legal puzzle he’d set up.
We are unequivocally pro-mask. It’s abundantly clear that if enough people would wear them when out in crowded public places, we could significantly reduce the spread of COVID-19 until better treatments or a vaccine are available.
But the right way is persuasion to urge both people and businesses to participate, not mandates. Criminal enforcement would be difficult, especially at a time when we want fewer reasons for police officers to harass or ticket people. Shifting the task to businesses is one more burden as they struggle in a difficult economy. Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams and Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley smartly declined to do so.
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Editorials are the positions of the Editorial Board, which serves as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s institutional voice. The members of the board are: Cynthia M. Allen, columnist; Steve Coffman, editor and president; Bud Kennedy, columnist; Ryan J. Rusak, opinion editor; and Nicole Russell, editorial writer and columnist. Most editorials are written by Rusak or Russell. Editorials are unsigned because they represent the board’s consensus positions, not the views of individual writers.
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Next, we got a glimpse of how state and local leaders envision the next school year unfolding. Though details remain scarce, it appears the strategy is for parents to choose between sending their children to school, where no masks will be supplied and no testing done, or fumbling through the difficulty of online learning.
In the Fort Worth school district, families can designate their preference starting July 1. A district spokesman said families will be asked to stick with their decision through the fall semester, but officials will consider individual cases if families may need to change.
We’ve acknowledged that school districts face a logistical nightmare in trying to adjust everything from transportation to meals to classroom settings in an effort to prevent spread of the virus. There is no perfect solution.
Still, many families will be in a difficult spot. Imagine two parents who can’t work from home, with someone in the house who has a condition that increases vulnerability to COVID-19. Should they send their children to school, risking greater exposure for the family, or try to modify their circumstances so someone can be home with the student? What are single parents to do?
The only long-term real solution, as always, is to fight the spread of the virus everywhere possible. One step local officials should take is to increase enforcement of limits on crowd sizes in public, especially in bars.
Abbott said Tuesday that the state Alcoholic Beverage Commission will move to suspend licenses of bars that aren’t compliant. Good. Cities should also use their code enforcement powers to crack down on those that aren’t following the rules that limit customers to 50% of a bar’s capacity or insisting upon safe distancing on customers. And if code compliance staff needs help, police resources should be tapped to help in a support capacity.
Leaders also need to monitor the impact of ongoing police-brutality protests. Science suggests outdoor gatherings are less conducive to the spread of the virus than being in close quarters indoors. But if it becomes clear the protests are linked to rising caseloads, protesters must be encouraged to spread out and mask up.
The recent increase in COVID-19 cases was expected, but it’s still alarming. Downright terrifying is the large leap in hospitalizations.
We’ve all sacrificed a lot to keep the disease from overwhelming our healthcare system. It would be a shame for all that to go to waste.
And it doesn’t have to, as long as more people wear masks, crowd limits are enforced and the return to school and other parts of life is carefully crafted.