By Paul J. Webber | Associated Press
ABILENE, Texas – In the weeks when Mark Riggs felt from exhausted before Thanksgiving to dying from COVID-19 last Monday, only six calls about people not wearing a face cover came into Abilene’s police department.
Even though opposition to the Texas mask mandate is easy to find here.
When Riggs checked into the hospital, a mortuary trailer large enough to stack 24 corpses had just arrived. A medical field tent sprang up in the parking lot as doctors moved the 67-year-old college professor to a ventilator. He died in an intensive care unit that had been packed for weeks, and the largest is within about 25,000 square miles of pumpjacks and pastures, bigger than Maryland.
Officers responded to three of the calls about facial coverage, which have been required since June. No quotes were issued.
“I’ve never been one to call up government or leadership,” said Katie Riggs Maxwell, 38, Riggs’ daughter. “But it is suddenly very personal.”
As virus cases and deaths have soared across the country this fall, the pressure on governors who have not issued mandates requiring people to wear masks indoors and in public places has increased. Health experts consider masks the most effective way to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Most states have statewide orders, and of the roughly 12 that don’t, the majority are in the South.
But the debate over mandates and lockdowns – usually sparked by howls about violating individual freedoms – often drowns out the reality of whether the restrictions imposed are actually enforced to make them effective.
In some states like New York, where COVID cases flooded hospitals earlier this year and were treated as a crisis, authorities have sent police to report violations, split up parties and even monitor funerals where gatherings of unmasked people were expected. In California, Los Angeles County has issued more than 300 citations to churches, businesses, and strip clubs for violations of COVID-19 restrictions since September.
But in many smaller cities, especially in politically conservative parts of the country like Abilene, a statewide mandate may not mean much because the threat of fines does not exist.
As families prepare to get together for Christmas and create the best conditions for the virus to spread, Abilene is unlikely to punish anyone who violates Texas rules for wearing masks and limiting outdoor gatherings to 10 people, even when overwhelmed doctors are here. refusing transfers from smaller hospitals and the city of 125,000 people struggles to eradicate an ever-worsening outbreak.
On Thursday, Texas broke a one-day record for new coronavirus cases with more than 16,000. Hospital admissions are at their highest levels since July and are on the rise.
Across the US, attempts to mask mandates and restrictions on restaurant seating have been vigorously threatened with defiance and at times violence. In Tennessee, police officers began accompanying inspectors in Memphis this month after some faced racist remarks. State officials have also been harassed health service inspectors in Maryland, particularly female inspectors.
There is no conflict in Abilene. Mayor Anthony Williams, who tested positive for the virus this summer, sees enforcement as logistically difficult and an economic burden in a city where unemployment rose tenfold in June. “We don’t want to exaggerate the problem,” he said.
Hospital leaders say they have not asked the city to reconsider.
“I don’t think it would be well received by the typical West Texas resident either,” said Dr. Stephen Lowry, Hendrick Health’s Chief of Staff in Abilene. He described them as “the typical rugged individualist, who doesn’t want to be told what to do”.
He and the mayor believe that the residents of Abilene have recently called for people to wear masks and take meetings to heart. Churches paused personal services. The number of cases is still rising, but not so rapidly in Taylor County in general, where at least 150 people have died, a number that has doubled since Nov. 1.
Yet residents and businesses must set their own boundaries, even none at all.
On the cautious end of the spectrum, downtown is the Paramount Theater, which was closed indefinitely as things spiked for Thanksgiving, even though it could remain open. The theater had sold tickets for a screening of a Christmas classic. Now people are strolling by the stop taking pictures of an accidental summons of 2020 on the vintage tent with red lettering: “IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE CANCELED.”
Grayson Allred, the theatre’s technical director, said they noticed that many customers who came in with masks took them off after they got in.
“Air is going to circulate in here and there’s no way to get out,” he said.
While many schools elsewhere rely on distance learning, most of Abilene’s 15,000 students have returned to their campuses this fall. Corridor traffic was rerouted to one-way traffic and masks were required. A teacher who tested positive for the virus died.
At The Shed Market, a barbecue favorite in Abilene, there are no signs on the door encouraging facial covering or social aloofness within. Orders are called behind the counter by unmasked employees. One of owner Byron Stephenson’s grandparents died of COVID-19. Stacie Stephenson, his wife and also an owner, is a former registered nurse.
“It was very difficult to decide what to do,” she said. “The nursing part of my brain thinks one way, and then the part of my brain that owns a business thinks another way. And so I feel like my feelings about this change, you know, once a week. “
Mark Riggs took the virus seriously at Abilene Christian University, where he completed his career after 16 years as a hospital biostatistician.
The desks in his class were six feet apart and the crew cleaned the room after each class. He and his wife, Debbie, stopped attending church.
He was still picking it up. The first signs appeared after a night of Christmas decorations with his 6 and 3 year old grandsons. Doctors put him on an air pump within two days of his hospitalization to help his breathing. When his condition deteriorated and the only option was a ventilator, his family first requested a video call with him. His last words: “This is not the end of my story.”
He died a week later. On Wednesday, Mayor Williams took to Facebook to defend the city’s handling of the virus and remind people that vaccines were on the way. It annoyed Debbie Riggs, who says that while he’s looking for silver liners, she’s planning a funeral.
“If the mayor says there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it doesn’t help right now,” said Debbie Riggs, standing on the campus where her 41-year-old husband taught for over 20 years. “That’s not taking action.”