Dallas County Covid-19 testing closed on Monday
As we all woke up Monday morning to the news that Dallas county will not be performing any Coronavirus tests. Bad weather was expected, the testing blunders repeated throughout social media and the news continues to echo in our minds. Texas’ coronavirus response is stupid, and it lies squarely on Greg Abbott’s shoulders.
Aside from my own experience trying to get a COVID-19 test, we have all been exposed to countless stories of people waiting up to 10 days to get test results, countless amounts of ill individuals who are sick in Texas cannot get tested, and Abbott’s refusal to issue a shelter in place. With the severity of this virus and how contagious it is, undoubtedly Texas is setting itself up to be the next New York.
Texas Health and Human Services has been publishing their numbers of tests they have done. They also have been publishing how many positives and deaths have occurred. Yet, if you watch this website, you will find they are not updating it regularly. There hasn’t been a jump in the number of tests as we were promised the testing would increase.
Abbott hurt Texans a long time ago by not expanding the Medicaid Option
This map represents the percentage of Americans without insurance. The biggest thing that sticks out is all of the red in Texas. This time it doesn’t represent all of the Republicans fighting to take our rights. It represents the number of people in Texas who have lost their human rights of access to healthcare. Because Abbott didn’t expand Medicaid, it’s estimated that around 730 Texans die each year without access to healthcare.
More egregious than that, recently Abbott said he asked, (asked, not ordered), HMOs to waive costs on testing. Not treatment, but testing. Then, he said that uninsured people could either get public health testing or go through a private lab. However, public health can only test less than 300 people a day. The private labs could cost… who knows how much?
As I wrote about in my own experience, getting a COVID-19 test in Texas in nearly impossible. Texans have and will continue to die for it. And you can just forget about flattening the curve in Texas, we may already be too late for that.
New reports coming out that Texas won’t even hit its peak until May 2. Since Abbott won’t call a shelter-in-place, over the next 34 days the numbers of infected and dead will likely grow exponentially.
Abbott lacks human compassion towards elderly inmates in Texas
As both Harris County publicly speculates releasing inmates who are elderly, or high risk for the coronavirus, Gregg Abbott wrote an executive order. These orders don’t say that violent criminals can’t be released. As Abbott has publicly stated, but that these certain inmates can’t be released without paying a cash bond.
I feel like this is a good time to remind everyone how much money Abbott has raked in from lobbyists for Private Prisons. Or how the Private Prison industry has boomed in Texas in the last few years.
We won’t know about the cases at the 15 military bases in Texas
As multiple news outlets have reported this morning, the US Military will no longer report the COVID-19 cases on their military bases and installations. This order came directly from the Pentagon after ABC and CNN reported that over 1,000 cases were linked to the military. The Pentagon has cited security concerns regarding publishing this number. However, with 15 military bases in Texas alone, and with the contact they have with the surrounding communities, we won’t know how much these areas will be hot spots.
Abbott’s Press Conference on 3/31/2020
As I sat here writing this, Greg Abbott popped up on my TV to talk about his new executive order. One of the first things that came out of his mouth was, he was planning on following the guidelines set by President Trump for social distancing. Seriously, the man who called the Coronavirus a hoax. Trump also said it was a Democratic ploy and said it would magically disappear. That’s whose guidelines he’s going to follow.
Followed by that, both Abbott and Dan Patrick touted about how low Texas coronavirus numbers are, and how their efforts are working. But no word at all about how many thousands of Texans still can’t get access to testing. Does their lies sound familiar?
Undoubtedly, Abbott and Trump are cut from the same cloth. And at this point, Gregg Abbott hasn’t done enough in his tenure or during this pandemic to protect Texans, to get Texans access to testing, or help low-income Texans get access to healthcare. Trump’s coronavirus response is stupid. Following in suit, Abbott’s coronavirus response is stupid, as well… Remember this next time he’s up for re-election.
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