#Dan Patrick sacrifice your grandparents to save the economy

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

The butchers of Tex-ass.

[unveilandresist]

y'all know how the media is spouting all kinds of garbage about palestine?

jsyk they have done the same damn thing with covid. covid is not like a casual cold or the flu. covid destroys your vascular system. covid fucks up your body's immune system. if you are wondering why you get sick so easily now, that is very likely why. your chance of becoming chronically ill increases with each infection you have, and up to 60% of cases are asymptomatic. they are lying about shit because the only thing that matters in the US is keeping the wheels of capitalism going and making the rich richer. remember at the beginning when Dan Patrick said we should sacrifice grandma for the economy?

he said the quiet bit out loud. vulnerable people have to rely on others to keep us safe, because the government does not give a single fuck. thousands of people are still dying of covid and many more are becoming disabled.

I haven't gone anywhere other than doctor's appointments and the grocery store for years now, as I am too sick to work and it is too risky. high risk people now cannot see their medical providers or even go to the hospital without putting ourselves at risk because no one masks even though covid is a highly contagious airborne virus.

I'm begging y'all to wear N95 masks or better (r/masks4all and r/zerocovidcommunity are helpful resources) and protect yourselves and the people around you- especially if you are showing up to a protest, crowds are extremely risky for covid transmission.

Please show solidarity by masking. Please give a fuck about your fellow humans. The difference between masking and not can mean saving a life or preventing permanent disability.

[easyfoodnetwork]

Governments Have an Obligation to Close Restaurants After Workers Test Positive for COVID-19

Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Closing your business after an employee gets sick is the right thing to do. But right now, it’s totally voluntary.

On June 16, the state of Texas announced its highest total number of new coronavirus cases to date. It wasn’t particularly surprising news, coming six weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott allowed restaurants to increase their occupancy to 25 percent after a weeks-long shutdown statewide. In recent weeks, restaurants have been allowed to increase their capacity to 75 percent of normal, bars are operating at 50 percent capacity, and more than 96,000 positive COVID-19 cases have been identified in Texas, a number that continues to rise by the thousands on a daily basis.

At the same time, dozens of restaurants across the state are closing their doors as employees — those on the front lines and at the highest risk of getting sick — test positive for the novel coronavirus. These closures — sometimes lasting days, others for weeks — give restaurant owners time to engage in intensive deep-cleaning and potentially revise their health and safety protocols. Some establishments require that exposed employees self-quarantine and are paying for staff to get tested. Over the past week, nearly a dozen Houston restaurants announced temporary closures after employees tested positive. A similar smattering of shutters was seen in Austin and Dallas.

These are only the positive tests and closures we know about. Because at present, the state of Texas, like most other states and cities nationwide, does not legally require a restaurant shut down if an employee has tested positive for COVID-19. Massachusetts has mandated that restaurants must close for at least 24 hours and disinfect the space in accordance with Centers for Disease Control guidelines after a “worker, patron, or vendor” tests positive for COVID-19. But Massachusetts is an outlier: Most states and cities (like Los Angeles and Chicago) offer only “recommendations” and “guidelines” instead of enforceable requirements. In Texas, Abbott’s “Open Texas” plan, which outlines reopening recommendations, is merely a set of guidelines that establishments are “encouraged” to implement, not codified law or enforceable regulations. That leaves closure and testing decisions entirely up to business owners, and that’s a serious problem — for workers and diners.

Restaurants are already expected to meet an extensive set of food safety guidelines, but combatting COVID-19 is not the same as battling foodborne pathogens. We still don’t know enough about how this virus is transmitted, especially in small spaces, or what can conclusively be done to stem its spread, and that makes it difficult for restaurants to implement effective safety measures. It also doesn’t help that many people across the state have refused to participate in social distancing or wear masks in enclosed spaces like restaurants; Abbott’s guidelines do not require restaurant workers to wear masks, either, asking owners to simply “consider having all employees and contractors wear cloth face coverings.”

So it’s no wonder that restaurant employees are getting sick. Right now, restaurants that choose to close after a positive diagnosis among staff are doing it voluntarily, and it’s absolutely the right thing to do. Continuing to expose patrons and workers to a potentially deadly virus is unjustifiable, even if a restaurant is looking at a seriously bleak economic picture. But because there is no government entity keeping an eye on these establishments, the most egregious offenders go unchecked: Without a required level of transparency or legal obligation to protect their employees, these restaurants might be allowing sick workers to prepare food in the kitchen and refusing to allow servers to wear masks. No restaurant wants to be associated with an infectious disease, and without regulation, there’s a pretty massive incentive for restaurants to keep quiet about positive COVID-19 tests among staffers.

In some cases, those staffers have had to publicly advocate on their own behalf. Earlier this year, it took highly publicized union efforts and worker strikes to change the closure policies and safety requirements at many of the country’s major grocery store chains. Like restaurant workers, these employees reported that their employers were slow to inform employees that they may have been exposed to the virus, and slow to close when a fellow worker fell ill. It seems clear that businesses aren’t going to make the decision to protect public health on their own. And in small, independent restaurants, it’s nearly impossible for workers to organize to better their working conditions.

Which is exactly why the decision to close shouldn’t be left up to business owners at all. It’s hard to blame most of these operators for their choice to open, because it often isn’t a choice at all: They’re already in a precarious position considering weeks of shutdown, the costs of adapting to service in the middle of a pandemic, and ever-declining revenues. Right now, their options are either to reopen and keep paying staff while potentially sickening someone, or close the doors entirely and try to outlast the pandemic without bankrupting themselves. But ultimately, when the options are “sickening people with a deadly virus” or “losing money,” the former has to outweigh the latter.

In Texas, though, that’s not how officials see it. Back in March, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick urged grandparents to sacrifice themselves on the altar of the Texas economy. In some cases, the governor has actively stymied large cities like Houston and Dallas in their efforts to slow the virus’s spread, telling local officials that any orders requiring the wearing of face masks or imposing fines on businesses are in conflict with Abbott’s executive orders.

In the interest of public safety, rules like those in place in Massachusetts should be commonplace across the country. If an employee tests positive for COVID-19, restaurants should be required to close for at least 24 hours, perhaps longer. They should be required to tell the public if their employees test positive for coronavirus, or if people have been exposed to COVID-19 in their dining room so that those people could be tested or self-quarantine. These establishments should also be required to pay for testing for their employees, along with medical treatment if those workers are sickened on the job. Those requirements should happen in tandem with better national initiatives, including adequate contact tracing, which has shown real promise in combating the coronavirus in places like South Korea.

Republican leaders like Abbott and Patrick have said over and over that the cure cannot be worse than the virus, in an economic sense. But that will be extremely difficult to bleat once these officials are hooked up to ventilators. If thousands of people each day continue to die of the coronavirus, there won’t be anyone to go to these restaurants once the “new normal” is safe. And if places like Texas, where both its largest cities and rural communities have long lacked adequate access to health care, continue to see increased positive cases and the hospitalization of symptomatic patients every single day, it’s not going to be back to normal for a long while.

Protecting the public health is literally the function of government, and it feels a little bit hypocritical for Abbott and Patrick to pretend that the coronavirus crisis isn’t being exacerbated by their insistence on reopening earlier. Considering that this duo is behind some of the most draconian abortion laws in the country throughout their tenure in the Capitol, all under the guise of protecting public health, it’s patently absurd for them to fail to do their jobs right now.

The virus isn’t going anywhere. Every public activity will be at elevated risk until there is a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, and maybe forever. But as the death toll continues to climb, it’s abundantly clear that these losses of life are a failure of governance. It’s time for state and local leaders to step up, and make the bare minimum decision to close these restaurants temporarily in an effort to save lives. Without that, how many people will be sickened — and how many will die — because Texans couldn’t bear the thought of living without their patio margaritas for a few more weeks?

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/30Uypat https://ift.tt/2YGh9D6

Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Closing your business after an employee gets sick is the right thing to do. But right now, it’s totally voluntary.

On June 16, the state of Texas announced its highest total number of new coronavirus cases to date. It wasn’t particularly surprising news, coming six weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott allowed restaurants to increase their occupancy to 25 percent after a weeks-long shutdown statewide. In recent weeks, restaurants have been allowed to increase their capacity to 75 percent of normal, bars are operating at 50 percent capacity, and more than 96,000 positive COVID-19 cases have been identified in Texas, a number that continues to rise by the thousands on a daily basis.

At the same time, dozens of restaurants across the state are closing their doors as employees — those on the front lines and at the highest risk of getting sick — test positive for the novel coronavirus. These closures — sometimes lasting days, others for weeks — give restaurant owners time to engage in intensive deep-cleaning and potentially revise their health and safety protocols. Some establishments require that exposed employees self-quarantine and are paying for staff to get tested. Over the past week, nearly a dozen Houston restaurants announced temporary closures after employees tested positive. A similar smattering of shutters was seen in Austin and Dallas.

These are only the positive tests and closures we know about. Because at present, the state of Texas, like most other states and cities nationwide, does not legally require a restaurant shut down if an employee has tested positive for COVID-19. Massachusetts has mandated that restaurants must close for at least 24 hours and disinfect the space in accordance with Centers for Disease Control guidelines after a “worker, patron, or vendor” tests positive for COVID-19. But Massachusetts is an outlier: Most states and cities (like Los Angeles and Chicago) offer only “recommendations” and “guidelines” instead of enforceable requirements. In Texas, Abbott’s “Open Texas” plan, which outlines reopening recommendations, is merely a set of guidelines that establishments are “encouraged” to implement, not codified law or enforceable regulations. That leaves closure and testing decisions entirely up to business owners, and that’s a serious problem — for workers and diners.

Restaurants are already expected to meet an extensive set of food safety guidelines, but combatting COVID-19 is not the same as battling foodborne pathogens. We still don’t know enough about how this virus is transmitted, especially in small spaces, or what can conclusively be done to stem its spread, and that makes it difficult for restaurants to implement effective safety measures. It also doesn’t help that many people across the state have refused to participate in social distancing or wear masks in enclosed spaces like restaurants; Abbott’s guidelines do not require restaurant workers to wear masks, either, asking owners to simply “consider having all employees and contractors wear cloth face coverings.”

So it’s no wonder that restaurant employees are getting sick. Right now, restaurants that choose to close after a positive diagnosis among staff are doing it voluntarily, and it’s absolutely the right thing to do. Continuing to expose patrons and workers to a potentially deadly virus is unjustifiable, even if a restaurant is looking at a seriously bleak economic picture. But because there is no government entity keeping an eye on these establishments, the most egregious offenders go unchecked: Without a required level of transparency or legal obligation to protect their employees, these restaurants might be allowing sick workers to prepare food in the kitchen and refusing to allow servers to wear masks. No restaurant wants to be associated with an infectious disease, and without regulation, there’s a pretty massive incentive for restaurants to keep quiet about positive COVID-19 tests among staffers.

In some cases, those staffers have had to publicly advocate on their own behalf. Earlier this year, it took highly publicized union efforts and worker strikes to change the closure policies and safety requirements at many of the country’s major grocery store chains. Like restaurant workers, these employees reported that their employers were slow to inform employees that they may have been exposed to the virus, and slow to close when a fellow worker fell ill. It seems clear that businesses aren’t going to make the decision to protect public health on their own. And in small, independent restaurants, it’s nearly impossible for workers to organize to better their working conditions.

Which is exactly why the decision to close shouldn’t be left up to business owners at all. It’s hard to blame most of these operators for their choice to open, because it often isn’t a choice at all: They’re already in a precarious position considering weeks of shutdown, the costs of adapting to service in the middle of a pandemic, and ever-declining revenues. Right now, their options are either to reopen and keep paying staff while potentially sickening someone, or close the doors entirely and try to outlast the pandemic without bankrupting themselves. But ultimately, when the options are “sickening people with a deadly virus” or “losing money,” the former has to outweigh the latter.

In Texas, though, that’s not how officials see it. Back in March, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick urged grandparents to sacrifice themselves on the altar of the Texas economy. In some cases, the governor has actively stymied large cities like Houston and Dallas in their efforts to slow the virus’s spread, telling local officials that any orders requiring the wearing of face masks or imposing fines on businesses are in conflict with Abbott’s executive orders.

In the interest of public safety, rules like those in place in Massachusetts should be commonplace across the country. If an employee tests positive for COVID-19, restaurants should be required to close for at least 24 hours, perhaps longer. They should be required to tell the public if their employees test positive for coronavirus, or if people have been exposed to COVID-19 in their dining room so that those people could be tested or self-quarantine. These establishments should also be required to pay for testing for their employees, along with medical treatment if those workers are sickened on the job. Those requirements should happen in tandem with better national initiatives, including adequate contact tracing, which has shown real promise in combating the coronavirus in places like South Korea.

Republican leaders like Abbott and Patrick have said over and over that the cure cannot be worse than the virus, in an economic sense. But that will be extremely difficult to bleat once these officials are hooked up to ventilators. If thousands of people each day continue to die of the coronavirus, there won’t be anyone to go to these restaurants once the “new normal” is safe. And if places like Texas, where both its largest cities and rural communities have long lacked adequate access to health care, continue to see increased positive cases and the hospitalization of symptomatic patients every single day, it’s not going to be back to normal for a long while.

Protecting the public health is literally the function of government, and it feels a little bit hypocritical for Abbott and Patrick to pretend that the coronavirus crisis isn’t being exacerbated by their insistence on reopening earlier. Considering that this duo is behind some of the most draconian abortion laws in the country throughout their tenure in the Capitol, all under the guise of protecting public health, it’s patently absurd for them to fail to do their jobs right now.

The virus isn’t going anywhere. Every public activity will be at elevated risk until there is a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, and maybe forever. But as the death toll continues to climb, it’s abundantly clear that these losses of life are a failure of governance. It’s time for state and local leaders to step up, and make the bare minimum decision to close these restaurants temporarily in an effort to save lives. Without that, how many people will be sickened — and how many will die — because Texans couldn’t bear the thought of living without their patio margaritas for a few more weeks?

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/30Uypat via Blogger https://ift.tt/2YbfZAy

[automaticpostinfluencer]

Texas Lt. Gov. Ripped For Saying Seniors May Be Willing To Die For The Economy

Twitter users are calling out Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick for claiming that “lots of grandparents out there” are willing to take a chance against the COVID-19 coronavirus in order to save the economy.

Speaking on Fox News, Patrick agreed with President Donald Trump’s proposal for a quicker end to the shutdowns that have stalled the economy. 

The closures and stay-at-home instructions are aimed at stopping the spread of the virus, especially to those most vulnerable, such as seniors, who make up 80% of all U.S. deaths.

But Patrick, who turns 70 next month, indicated he’s willing to put his own survival on the line in exchange for “keeping the America that all America loves” for future generations. 

“And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in,” he told Tucker Carlson, adding there are “lots of grandparents” who agree. 

“My message is that let’s get back to work, let’s get back to living, let’s be smart about it, and those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves. But don’t sacrifice the country,” he said.

Twitter users were aghast at the notion of grandparents being sacrificed to the virus in the name of the economy: 

This kind of numbnuttery will kill people in Texas. Young as well as old. We need a state-wide shelter in place order to stop the spread of coronavirus and save hundreds of thousands of lives. https://t.co/C8r9Q7t2vs

— Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) March 24, 2020

I love my grandparents very dearly and would not like to see them as human sacrifices at the altar of the stock market and did not realize this desire had to be actively defended! https://t.co/nRvtZ8ywnA

— Emma Baccellieri (@emmabaccellieri) March 24, 2020

Telling y’all, if Dan Patrick wants to sacrifice *himself,* that’s fine. When he begins volunteering *other people* to sacrifice themselves on behalf of the state, then that’s genocide. https://t.co/HOMy5L3Csp

— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) March 24, 2020

pic.twitter.com/4pdz4x3JBB

— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) March 24, 2020

To think Texans survived Jade Helm and transgender bathrooms only to be sacrificed by Dan Patrick himself. What a twist. https://t.co/D8YVqE6wf0

— Evan (@evan7257) March 24, 2020

I have to say, while the GOP’s dark, Shirley Jackson-esque plot twist isn’t entirely unexpected, that the primary victims would be a significant part of Trump’s base is certainly a surprise. https://t.co/B5ZwOx62TN

— Radley Balko (@radleybalko) March 24, 2020

.@DanPatrick Do I have to choose which one of my grandparents to sacrifice, or do they do that for me? Is there a test they take? Maybe a panel of people who assess which ones can survive the longest?

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) March 24, 2020

Pump Up the Curve – Dan Patrick https://t.co/JKY3kaHGDO

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) March 24, 2020

Hello it’s me a principled conservative and I am here to say why wait for grandma and grandpa to die in the pandemic when we can start hunting them for sport today

— Mariya Alexander (@MariyaAlexander) March 24, 2020

2010: Conservatives freak out over “death panels.”

2020: Conservatives endorse reality version of “Logan’s Run.” pic.twitter.com/7SiDNL7VrM

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) March 24, 2020

I’d prefer to keep my one remaining grandparent, thanks. https://t.co/6K0s1l6IuS

— Lindsey Adler (@lindseyadler) March 24, 2020

Also, that’s the same guy who loses his shit about trans people existing, always going on about how it’s the government’s duty to protect people from the imaginary threat of trans people in bathrooms… now being like “Well, sorry, grandma’s gotta go for the sake of the market”

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) March 24, 2020

2016: “Let’s make America great again!”

2020: “If hundreds of thousands of you have to die for us to have a lot of brands of cereal, I guess that’s just the way it is” https://t.co/hGKaqpvDwK

— Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) March 24, 2020

“Screw the masks & ventilators and start printing up those “I’D DIE FOR THE DOW!” t-shirts for Florida’s nursing homes!”

— Scott Linnen (@ScottLinnen) March 24, 2020

Die for the Dow. https://t.co/9FIjpWTIur

— Cameron Johnson (@cameronjawesome) March 24, 2020

Hey Memaws and Pawpaws, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick thinks it’s better for you to die than for the stock market to crash. You ready to die for the Dow? https://t.co/nzkjL84Pl1

— Leanne Potts (@TheRealMLPotts) March 24, 2020

YOU CANT BE A PRO LIFE REPUBLICAN AND ALSO WANT PEOPLE TO DIE FOR THE DOW JONES

— my king is andrew yang (@yang2020fangirl) March 23, 2020

after spending a single week inside, right-wingers are asking you to consider letting grandma die so their favorite Cheesecake Factory reopens. drinking bottomless margaritas on some cruise ship called “Mermaid Of The Seas” is a life or death issue for them

— Brendan Karet

(@bad_takes) March 24, 2020

thank God none of our grandparents watch FOX News https://t.co/wJnHbV6ot1

— Matt Oswalt (@MattOswaltVA) March 24, 2020

I strongly resist duplexes being built in my neighborhood bc it would ruin its historic character also I’m ready to die for the Dow

— Jason Goldman (@goldman) March 24, 2020

I don’t often go wild here but fuck this, I’m sorry. This is sickening, pure and simple, beyond the type of shit you’d see as a cynical joke in dystopian fiction. Asking the elderly to sacrifice themselves for the economy – Dan Patrick and Tucker can fuck all the way off. https://t.co/1TKserPuzk

— Steve Orlando (@thesteveorlando) March 24, 2020

Amazing how they’ll die for the Dow Jones to save their grandchildren but won’t do anything to stop the planet from melting https://t.co/eD0RdFyWLd

— lights out (@countdown2march) March 24, 2020

*taptaptap*

Hi, 1st gen/naturalized Texan here.

DAN PATRICK IS A DELUSIONAL PIECE OF GARBAGE.

Protect your Ma-Maws and your Pa-Paws.

Por favor, protege a tu abuelas y abuelos.

STAY THE HELL HOME for as long as you can. #COVID19 #coronavirus #StayHome

— Tanya 수정 Tarr (@nerdette) March 24, 2020

Genocide is the destruction of a national/ethnic/racial/religious group in whole or in part, but shouldn’t it cover the preventable deaths of an entire generation? Because Dan Patrick, monster, thinks this’d be noble for the sake of a near work of fiction called “the economy”. https://t.co/7kds1BVylM

— Their Excellency Elan Morgan

(@schmutzie) March 24, 2020

A HuffPost Guide to Coronavirus

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Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost’s next chapter

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[easyfoodnetwork]

Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images Closing your business after an employee gets sick is the right thing to do. But right now, it’s totally voluntary. On June 16, the state of Texas announced its highest total number of new coronavirus cases to date. It wasn’t particularly surprising news, coming six weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott allowed restaurants to increase their occupancy to 25 percent after a weeks-long shutdown statewide. In recent weeks, restaurants have been allowed to increase their capacity to 75 percent of normal, bars are operating at 50 percent capacity, and more than 96,000 positive COVID-19 cases have been identified in Texas, a number that continues to rise by the thousands on a daily basis. At the same time, dozens of restaurants across the state are closing their doors as employees — those on the front lines and at the highest risk of getting sick — test positive for the novel coronavirus. These closures — sometimes lasting days, others for weeks — give restaurant owners time to engage in intensive deep-cleaning and potentially revise their health and safety protocols. Some establishments require that exposed employees self-quarantine and are paying for staff to get tested. Over the past week, nearly a dozen Houston restaurants announced temporary closures after employees tested positive. A similar smattering of shutters was seen in Austin and Dallas. These are only the positive tests and closures we know about. Because at present, the state of Texas, like most other states and cities nationwide, does not legally require a restaurant shut down if an employee has tested positive for COVID-19. Massachusetts has mandated that restaurants must close for at least 24 hours and disinfect the space in accordance with Centers for Disease Control guidelines after a “worker, patron, or vendor” tests positive for COVID-19. But Massachusetts is an outlier: Most states and cities (like Los Angeles and Chicago) offer only “recommendations” and “guidelines” instead of enforceable requirements. In Texas, Abbott’s “Open Texas” plan, which outlines reopening recommendations, is merely a set of guidelines that establishments are “encouraged” to implement, not codified law or enforceable regulations. That leaves closure and testing decisions entirely up to business owners, and that’s a serious problem — for workers and diners. Restaurants are already expected to meet an extensive set of food safety guidelines, but combatting COVID-19 is not the same as battling foodborne pathogens. We still don’t know enough about how this virus is transmitted, especially in small spaces, or what can conclusively be done to stem its spread, and that makes it difficult for restaurants to implement effective safety measures. It also doesn’t help that many people across the state have refused to participate in social distancing or wear masks in enclosed spaces like restaurants; Abbott’s guidelines do not require restaurant workers to wear masks, either, asking owners to simply “consider having all employees and contractors wear cloth face coverings.” So it’s no wonder that restaurant employees are getting sick. Right now, restaurants that choose to close after a positive diagnosis among staff are doing it voluntarily, and it’s absolutely the right thing to do. Continuing to expose patrons and workers to a potentially deadly virus is unjustifiable, even if a restaurant is looking at a seriously bleak economic picture. But because there is no government entity keeping an eye on these establishments, the most egregious offenders go unchecked: Without a required level of transparency or legal obligation to protect their employees, these restaurants might be allowing sick workers to prepare food in the kitchen and refusing to allow servers to wear masks. No restaurant wants to be associated with an infectious disease, and without regulation, there’s a pretty massive incentive for restaurants to keep quiet about positive COVID-19 tests among staffers. In some cases, those staffers have had to publicly advocate on their own behalf. Earlier this year, it took highly publicized union efforts and worker strikes to change the closure policies and safety requirements at many of the country’s major grocery store chains. Like restaurant workers, these employees reported that their employers were slow to inform employees that they may have been exposed to the virus, and slow to close when a fellow worker fell ill. It seems clear that businesses aren’t going to make the decision to protect public health on their own. And in small, independent restaurants, it’s nearly impossible for workers to organize to better their working conditions. Which is exactly why the decision to close shouldn’t be left up to business owners at all. It’s hard to blame most of these operators for their choice to open, because it often isn’t a choice at all: They’re already in a precarious position considering weeks of shutdown, the costs of adapting to service in the middle of a pandemic, and ever-declining revenues. Right now, their options are either to reopen and keep paying staff while potentially sickening someone, or close the doors entirely and try to outlast the pandemic without bankrupting themselves. But ultimately, when the options are “sickening people with a deadly virus” or “losing money,” the former has to outweigh the latter. In Texas, though, that’s not how officials see it. Back in March, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick urged grandparents to sacrifice themselves on the altar of the Texas economy. In some cases, the governor has actively stymied large cities like Houston and Dallas in their efforts to slow the virus’s spread, telling local officials that any orders requiring the wearing of face masks or imposing fines on businesses are in conflict with Abbott’s executive orders. In the interest of public safety, rules like those in place in Massachusetts should be commonplace across the country. If an employee tests positive for COVID-19, restaurants should be required to close for at least 24 hours, perhaps longer. They should be required to tell the public if their employees test positive for coronavirus, or if people have been exposed to COVID-19 in their dining room so that those people could be tested or self-quarantine. These establishments should also be required to pay for testing for their employees, along with medical treatment if those workers are sickened on the job. Those requirements should happen in tandem with better national initiatives, including adequate contact tracing, which has shown real promise in combating the coronavirus in places like South Korea. Republican leaders like Abbott and Patrick have said over and over that the cure cannot be worse than the virus, in an economic sense. But that will be extremely difficult to bleat once these officials are hooked up to ventilators. If thousands of people each day continue to die of the coronavirus, there won’t be anyone to go to these restaurants once the “new normal” is safe. And if places like Texas, where both its largest cities and rural communities have long lacked adequate access to health care, continue to see increased positive cases and the hospitalization of symptomatic patients every single day, it’s not going to be back to normal for a long while. Protecting the public health is literally the function of government, and it feels a little bit hypocritical for Abbott and Patrick to pretend that the coronavirus crisis isn’t being exacerbated by their insistence on reopening earlier. Considering that this duo is behind some of the most draconian abortion laws in the country throughout their tenure in the Capitol, all under the guise of protecting public health, it’s patently absurd for them to fail to do their jobs right now. The virus isn’t going anywhere. Every public activity will be at elevated risk until there is a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, and maybe forever. But as the death toll continues to climb, it’s abundantly clear that these losses of life are a failure of governance. It’s time for state and local leaders to step up, and make the bare minimum decision to close these restaurants temporarily in an effort to save lives. Without that, how many people will be sickened — and how many will die — because Texans couldn’t bear the thought of living without their patio margaritas for a few more weeks? from Eater - All https://ift.tt/30Uypat

http://easyfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/06/governments-have-obligation-to-close.html