On this monumental week in the fight against COVID-19, exactly one year after the NBA suddenly shut down and the WHO upgraded the coronavirus to a pandemic globally, I want to take the time to chronicle my experience with the state’s lackadaisical, laissez-faire sociopolitical response to the ongoing crisis. I initially drove down in June, just three weeks before the statewide mask mandate was issued by Gov. Abbott, when there was minimal awareness and preparation in rural west Texas. Which means that, officially, I endured the complete duration of the epidemic, as the mask mandate formally ended this Wednesday to fully reopen the state. While it’s hard to break the pandemic into well-defined first, second, and third waves, there was a noticeable evolution of attitudes from confusion to situational empathy to stubborn resistance.
Phase 1: Unlimited Social Gatherings
Beginning with almost no masks or distancing, the prevailing sentiment outside of the major cities was that “if the virus comes, it comes…but it’s not here yet, so I’m going to keep living my life.” Even when the Governor instituted the conditional mask mandate on June 22nd, people continued with their summertime social schedules. Hill country destination Fredericksburg was packed with tourists each time I passed through. Fourth of July parties, boat parades, unpublicized club events – many Texans never scaled back their social interactions despite the ever-increasing risks of transmission. There’s a work-hard-play-hard aspect to Texas culture, and weekend festivities just had to go on.
The coronavirus still carried an air of mystery for most, but the Texas business elites in my orbit had a wildly different experience. While I was denied a COVID test out in rural Junction, my well-connected acquaintances had been tested several times each. They were still jetsetting across the state to attend meetings and parties as usual, in stark contrast to the lockdowns in other parts of the country. A few young adults in this cohort had tested positive, and they railed against the newly imposed shutdowns and mask mandates because their symptoms were mild (if they had any at all).
Phase 2: Viral Recognition
Around mid-July, case counts skyrocketed all over the state. Shocking images of mobile morgues in El Paso and makeshift ICUs in Houston influenced the public conversation about wearing masks and social distancing – 4 months in, and the severity of the pandemic finally felt intimately real. There was almost universal compliance with the mask mandate, most without complaint. A large segment of the population always felt that their personal freedoms were being violated, but the social pressure to wear a mask seemed to temporarily suspend their outrage. I went on a socially-distanced date with a cute epidemiologist who worked as a contact tracer: the majority of her calls were met with deliberate unhelpfulness or hostility, despite the circumstances, which I found self-centered and disheartening.
Perhaps it was unavoidable between working and relocating, but I contracted COVID in September. It sucked, the worst being a prolonged shortness of breath and muscle fatigue dogging me for 10 days. I was able to work from home, mostly, though my brain was foggy and tired. Fortunately, tests were more widely available in Hallettsville at that time, and as far as I know I wasn’t a vector.
Phase 3: What are we doing?
After testing negative two weeks later, I became more attuned to high-risk behaviors upon returning to my work routine. I went out to eat with a colleague, and I was absolutely floored that 100 people, many of them over 60 and almost all of them unmasked, would cram into a single ~1500 square foot room. I met up with some nurse friends, two of whom had also survived COVID, and they were deeply frustrated by the brazen behavior that landed so many people in their critical care. The whole situation seemed self-defeating, like we were left at the mercy of other people’s careless actions regardless of our own precautions.
The virus continued to spread through Hallettsville. The entire JV football squad tested positive one week, then the cheerleading squad all came down with COVID the next. Eventually, two of my coworkers experienced symptoms and tested positive, once the virus had spread from children to parents to other members of the community. School and work could not stop, however; the predominant attitude has shifted toward to “the virus is not dangerous for the young and healthy, and the vulnerable should self-quarantine.”
Phase 4: End the Tyranny
The local elections were a much bigger deal here than state or national elections this past November. The newly elected sheriff and judge ran on a shared platform of “ending the tyranny” of mask enforcement, and they rode a wave of people’s frustrations with the pandemic-related restrictions to victory. While the mask mandate remained statewide, most people here only wear their mask as a prop upon entering businesses, if at all. I witnessed a couple of verbal altercations in public places between masked patrons and anti-maskers, as the newfound freedom begat a different form of tyranny. Masks became symbolic instead of an essential prevention strategy, and habits further relaxed…just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
At some point after New Year’s, the case count began to drop off, possibly because it seems like most people have already had COVID. But it’s still going around: my barber just recovered from the virus last week.
Phase 5 and beyond: Victory, Defeat, or Something in Between
Now that the mask mandate is lifted, I expect an uptick in COVID cases though perhaps not a spike. If you consider rural Texas as a testbed for completely hands-off policy, there wasn’t a major difference in transmission between ‘tyranny’ and ‘no tyranny’ because Texans didn’t substantially modify their behavior. While it seems premature to fully open bars and event venues, people are already gathering by the dozens in restaurants and private parties, and I’m tempted to adopt the same defeatist attitude as many others: “What difference does it make?” Of course I wish that masks and social distancing were encouraged for a few more months until most people have the opportunity to get vaccinated, but I am beginning to understand that Texas’s modus operandi will always be “uncontrolled free-for-all.”
While the response to the mask mandate’s repeal has ranged from public revelry to outright panic, I get the sense that Texans across the board are weary. Skeptics of the disease’s severity are weary of the mask-wearing ‘charade.’ Conscientious citizens are weary of conflicts with anti-maskers. High-risk members of society are weary of self-quarantining month after month, many holed up completely because society never really adjusted to accommodate their safety. When a new tragedy struck in the form of freezing cold temperatures and prolonged power outages, COVID paled in comparison to that emergency in both scale and urgency. Perhaps that was the straw that broke the camel’s back here – I think I’m now ready to admit that it’s time to reopen for a full economic recovery, even if a majority of people remain unvaccinated. We may not have definitively won or lost the fight against coronavirus, but case numbers are coming down amid a stalemate – one that I expect to continue indefinitely until vaccination is widespread.
Worldly Observations 
