Yesterday, Texas had nearly 8000 new cases of COVID-19, but Texas' Lt. Governor keeps blaming health officials like Dr. Fauci for their cautious recommendations on reopening, insisting that he knows better.
Source: Texas Tribune
Despite Texas’ surge of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Tuesday evening that he doesn’t need the advice of the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci.
“Fauci said today he’s concerned about states like Texas that ‘skipped over’ certain things. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Patrick told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in an interview. “We haven’t skipped over anything. The only thing I’m skipping over is listening to him.”
Patrick also said Fauci has “been wrong every time on every issue,” but did not elaborate on specifics.
During a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, Fauci said the nation is going in the “wrong direction” with coronavirus cases.
“It could get very bad,” Fauci said, warning that new cases “could go up to 100,000 a day” if people continue to defy advice on social distancing and face masks. He said states like Arizona, California, Florida and Texas have each had to roll back reopening plans as cases in those states climb, noting that half of the new cases nationwide have been reported in those states. The sharp increase of new infections and hospitalizations rates, he said, have also jeopardized reopening plans throughout the country.
This escalation of attack on Dr. Fauci by Fox News and others on the far-right Is probably best summed up by this graphic, also from Ingraham's show last night.
Beto O'Rourke's response.
Want to know why there is an uncontrolled covid outbreak in Texas, with record number of cases, hospitalizations and (soon) deaths? Because Dan Patrick leads a death cult that Abbott, Cornyn and company are too scared to stand up to. https://t.co/gUdXEPmdCe
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) July 1, 2020
