Texas GOP convention won’t require masks, despite COVID-19 surge in Houston and state
The Texas Republican party won’t require masks at its convention in July despite a surge of COVID-19 cases in the state, a local order and the governor’s advice.
Texas GOP Chairman James Dickey announced this week that wearing face coverings during the convention in Houston will be optional, saying “we encourage everyone to take the precautions they feel they need to when it comes to masks, just like you do with hand sanitizer and social distancing guidelines.”
“We have said all along that people are welcome to wear masks if they wish or welcome not to wear a mask,” Dickey said in a convention update on Wednesday.
The state is hitting a record-breaking number of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, which has Republican Gov. Greg Abbott backpedaling on a reopening plan. On Friday, Abbott ordered bars to close and restaurants to return to 50% capacity by Monday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
Earlier in the week, Abbott emphasized the importance of wearing masks as hospitalizations climbed, saying the practice will help keep businesses open, The Associated Press reported.
In the Houston area, county officials declared the COVID-19 outbreak “severe and uncontrolled” Friday.
“The harsh truth is that our current infection rate is on pace to overwhelm our hospitals in the very near future,” County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a news release. “We hope this serves as a wake-up call to everyone that the time to act is now.
A week ago, the county issued an order mandating businesses require employees and visitors to wear face coverings. It is set to expire after June 30.
Texas GOP officials don’t believe the order applies to the convention from July 16–18. A spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to questions by McClatchy News about this interpretation. The party plans to revisit the topic at an upcoming meeting.
Dickey said the convention will have “no mask shaming” for attendees who choose to wear face coverings, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Wearing a mask has turned into a political statement. A poll released this week shows significantly higher percentage of Democrats than Republicans report wearing masks in public, Axios reported.
Texas Democrats decided to host their convention online in a series virtual events and panels in early June, citing health and safety concerns of a large gathering during a pandemic.
The Republican National Committee moved most of the national convention to Jacksonville, Florida, from North Carolina after President Donald Trump sparred with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper over social distancing guidelines at the event site in Charlotte.
The George R. Brown Convention Center, which is hosting the event in Houston, has installed walk-through temperature detectors to signal whether a visitor is running a fever, and hand sanitizer will be widely available throughout the building, organizers say.
“What clearly is a risk is being in a confined space and in close contact,” Dickey said. “This is not a confined space, there’s a huge ceiling in the room, there is excellent ventilation, it regularly will be cleaned.”
Still, health experts are concerned.
Catherine Troisi, an UTHealth School of Public Health epidemiologist in Houston, asked the convention center to give health coverage to hospitality workers and implement ways to slow spread of the coronavirus, the Houston Chronicle reported.
“We know that closed spaces, crowded conditions, close contact, and duration of contact all enhance transmission of this virus,” Troisi told the convention center in a letter, according to the newspaper. “This convention space includes all of these risk factors and particularly without mandatory masking, transmission of the virus is almost inevitable, both to convention attendees and to hospitality employees.”
This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 4:26 PM with the headline "Texas GOP convention won’t require masks, despite COVID-19 surge in Houston and state."