With Texas being one of the hot zones for Coronavirus infection spikes, the governor finally mandated that masks must be worn in all public places yesterday. (But only in counties with more than 20 documented infections, and he has exempted polling places where, you know, hundreds of people gather and wait in line. He says he doesn’t want people to not vote because they have to wear a mask). Until then, it had been up to individual counties and cities to set their rules, and many of the non-urban areas chose not to make them mandatory. Austin, which mandated masks a few days ago, has been going all out to let people know about the new requirement, with robocall and text alerts Wednesday ahead of the Fourth of July weekend. But a new text alert just came out, complete with the ESB warning tone, announcing that failure to wear a mask could result in a $250 fine. I’m all in favor of this. I just wish the governor had done this months ago.
