![]() Chris Turner, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, acknowledged Abbott has encouraged vaccines on some occasions but said he needs to do so “more often and more loudly.” The word “booster” has never appeared on Abbott’s personal Twitter account, and a spokesperson did not respond when asked whether the governor has received a booster.Īs of Monday, 14.4% of Texans had gotten boosters. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last month every qualifying adult should receive. ![]() But he does not go out of his way to promote vaccinations and he has expended much more energy in recent months fighting vaccine requirements by local and federal officials.Ībbott has been virtually silent on the booster, which the U.S. As of Monday, 56% of Texans were fully vaccinated, placing Texas in the back half of the 50 states when ranked by vaccination rates.Ībbott got vaccinated on camera late last year and has encouraged Texans to get the shot. Eze otherwise gave no indication the state was doing anything differently, saying it was continuing to respond to the pandemic by “setting up therapeutic infusion centers, ramping up COVID vaccination efforts, and providing surge staffing and medical equipment to hospitals and nursing homes.”Įze ended by calling vaccination the “best defense” against COVID-19 and encouraging Texans to get immunized.Įven as Abbott’s office says it’s prioritizing vaccines as the best defense against COVID-19, the state’s vaccination rate lags nationally. Hospitals have not yet seen a notable increase in cases, however, medical officials say they’re bracing for a possible post-holiday surge.Īsked Tuesday what the state is doing to address omicron, Abbott’s spokesperson Renae Eze said in a statement that the governor recently got a briefing on the state response to the variant by John Hellerstedt, the commissioner of the Department of State Health Services, and Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management. That rate hit 14.6% on Tuesday, part of a swift trajectory upward and above 10%, the threshold that Abbott has previously identified as worrisome. “We’re moving forward with life as we know it,” Abbott said Tuesday in a radio interview when asked about omicron.Ībbott’s insistence on the status quo comes as the state begins to see a rise in some key pandemic metrics, including daily new cases and the positivity rate, or the ratio of cases to tests. ![]() Now as the state stares down the latest variant, Abbott remains unmoved, continuing to rule out any mask or vaccine mandates and business shutdowns. That philosophy carried the state through the delta variant this fall, even as hospitals were overrun and deaths climbed. In March, Abbott ended the statewide mask mandate, marking the beginning of a sharp shift toward preaching “personal responsibility” and an outright rejection of any government mandate - whether state or local - to curb the pandemic. Greg Abbott is not budging on his hands-off approach to the coronavirus pandemic that was cemented months ago. Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.Īs other states are mobilizing to respond to the rapidly spreading omicron variant, Gov.
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