So. Texas. The entire state of Texas.
COVID is not over in Texas. COVID is not over anywhere, other than maybe New Zealand, though even they still have to be on guard against it reappearing. State officials in Texas have the same information that Joaquin Castro does, and presumably have access to even more information. They are literally in charge of the state, and could therefore get any information on the state that they wanted.
So Texas’s plan, then, is that they decide when this whole COVID business is over. I mean, who’s smarter, a regular sized person or a tiny virus that doesn’t even have a brain? Easy call, right? So why let the virus dictate terms? We tell it what’s what!
It is hard to overstate how much this is political posturing. Democrats staked out the “We should do what we have to do to keep people from dying” position early, so Republicans, outflanked, had no choice but to regroup around positions like “Maybe Grandma has to die for the economy” and “Wearing a mask is an infringement on our freedoms” and “What do doctors know anyway?” and, finally, “Fuck you, I’ll do what I want.”
The logical endpoint of this was fully opening before we’re done vaccinating people, because Democrats wouldn’t like that. Governor Greg Abbott can pay all the lip service he wants to the economy, but one thing that really hurts an economy is people being afraid to go outside because outside might kill them. So even accepting the premise that the risk of people dying is worth the certainty of economic recovery — definitely not the case but oh well that’s not the point here — Texas doesn’t even have the certainty of economic recovery.
Which brings us to the Texas Rangers.
The Rangers have jumped right on board the opening it up train, and are fully opening it up for the first game of the season. The fans are going to start streaming in, and the stadium will be at full capacity. They’ll require the fans to wear masks, of course, and if fans don’t, they’ll be removed from the stadium. It is, he said with some understatement, an open question how exactly the Texas Rangers would remove even one thousand fans who aren’t wearing masks, much less the multiple thousands that will be sure to show up mask-less.
Well, it’s not really an open question, I guess. They just won’t do anything! Problem solved.
The Rangers have committed to having a social distancing-friendly area…for future games. It’s obviously a non-starter when the stadium is full, since you won’t be able to keep fans six feet apart if every seat and concourse is jam packed with people. Oh well! What’s the worst that could happen? I mean, it’s not like a sporting event was the first COVID superspreader event in the Western Hemisphere. And it’s not like the mutations in the virus that could come with a superspreader event would then make our vaccines ineffective. If that were the case, some people would sure have egg on their faces!
All the Rangers have to do is hold off on 100% capacity for, like, another month. They can still do the 25% capacity plan which most teams will probably go with. It’s better for public health and avoids an awful lot of bad COVID-related publicity that would come with an outbreak centered at their stadium. We’re so close to enough people having the vaccine that we can mostly get back to normal. We really are. There’s absolutely no need to be this impatient.
Except, of course, there’s money to be made and an image to project. The people of Texas have to know that the Texas Rangers are with them in their quest to pretend that COVID is done now and we can be normal again with no consequences. They need to know that they have the freedom to spend money at Rangers games again, the freedom to defy public health experts, the freedom to do exactly what they want exactly when they want no matter what happens because of it.
Max Scherzer summed it up pretty well, I think:
Naturally, the comments feature several people insulting Fauci and Scherzer too, for trusting him. There are many more comments agreeing with Scherzer, but the angry ones, as always, are wronger and louder, so they get prominently displayed. The system works!
The Rangers are doing the wrong thing. They even, I think, know they’re doing the wrong thing, which is why they’re only allowing full capacity on Opening Day. Afterwards, it’ll be right back to the normal safety protocols. But any damage done on Opening Day will last for a long time. That’s how these things work. It’s unacceptable, but we’re just going to accept it. It’s ridiculous, but also normal. There is a good chance of some very negative effects from the one game, but it doesn’t matter. The libs don’t want Globe Life Stadium fully opened for that game, so we’re gonna do it. That’ll show ‘em.