COVID-19 is raging. Why are we bringing thousands of rodeo fans to Fort Worth area?
The advice comes over and over again, often with urgent, dire tones: avoid large gatherings with other people. It’s crucial to curtailing the rapidly growing pandemic.
Why, then, are Fort Worth and Arlington eagerly welcoming thousands of rodeo fans to town in early December? After all, they’re not coming here to enjoy our hotels, lovely though they may be. They’re coming, by the thousands, for public events.
It’s confusing at best to say in one moment that a family holiday dinner will spread disease while thousands of people in an arena or other venue — Globe Life Field for the 2020 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo or, say, AT&T Stadium for Dallas Cowboys games — is fine.
Though the main events for the rodeo are at the Rangers’ ballpark, Fort Worth will see a host of related activities, especially in the Stockyards. Both cities and event organizers have taken steps to make the events safe, and they vow mask requirements will be enforced.
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This Editorial Board has urged adaptation to the virus, following science about how it’s spread and figuring out how activities can be altered to be safe. But part of adaptation is acknowledging reality about the current moment of the pandemic and whether a gathering that might have been safer before is too dangerous now. With Tarrant County and Texas setting COVID-19 case records, the timing is terrible.
Plans are in place for limited capacity, giving out masks and stringent cleaning, but organizers can’t control human behavior. Visitors will cluster in hotels and restaurants. Masks will slip. The virus will spread.
In this phase of the pandemic, the bar for events such as these should be high. When the deal to move the event from Las Vegas to Arlington was announced in September, perhaps it seemed the virus would remain under better control. And the area certainly needs the economic boost, particularly in the hospitality industry. But future requests for crowd permits must be closely scrutinized.
After all, if illness threatens to overwhelm our hospitals, any financial gain will be lost if businesses have to reduce their operating capacity under Gov. Greg Abbott’s standing emergency order.
It’s a high threshold: If 15% of hospital beds in a region of the state defined as a trauma service area are filled with COVID-19 patients for more than a week, businesses must ratchet back from 75% to 50%. Tarrant County and its urban/suburban neighbors are grouped with more rural counties near the Red River, so it’ll take more than just the local case surge. But the area has been close to the limit in recent days.
And make no mistake, our hospitals are in danger. A University of North Texas Health Science Center epidemiologist warned that we could quickly run out of beds, based on the explosive growth in coronavirus cases. Overwhelmed health care facilities would be a problem for anyone needing care, not just COVID-19 patients.
Throughout the pandemic, the most difficult question for leaders and policymakers is how to enforce restrictions. County leaders grappled with the question Tuesday as commissioners voted to extend the local emergency declaration and the mandate that businesses require customers to wear masks.
There’s been confusion over how far the governor’s order goes. County Judge Glen Whitley, acting on the advice of District Attorney Sharen Wilson’s office, says Abbott’s order doesn’t allow enforcement of social-distancing requirements in businesses, a key question for restaurants especially.
City leaders are adamant that the order does impose such rules. They’re the ones doing the bulk of enforcing, through code-compliance departments. And the need for distancing should be obvious.
It’s a shame if local businesses, the backbone of our economy, face tougher scrutiny than big, tourist-drawing events. Fort Worth and Arlington leaders need to tread carefully in allowing such gatherings.
This area excels at attracting events and their cash-generating crowds. But right now, we don’t need to draw more coronavirus cases, too.