Coronavirus News

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott opens state back up and rescinds mask mandate

Masks will no longer be mandatory.

Photo courtesy of San Marcos CVB

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has rescinded all COVID-19 restrictions, giving the okay for businesses across the state to reopen to 100 percent capacity and removing the state mandate requiring masks.

Presiding over a press conference at Montelongo's Mexican Restaurant in Lubbock on March 2, Abbott said that Texas is in a better position now than it was when he previously issued restrictions, and that the state no longer needs to tell residents or businesses what to do.

"COVID has not suddenly disappeared, it still exists, but it is clear from the recovery that state mandates are no longer needed," he said. "That's why I'm issuing a new executive order that rescinds most of the executive orders we had in place."

The new order goes into place Wednesday, March 10.

"All businesses of any type are allowed to open 100 percent — any type of industry," he said. "I'm also ending the statewide mask mandate. This does not end personal responsibility or the importance of caring for your family and friends. [You still need] personal vigilance to follow safe standards but state mandates are no longer needed."

"Texans have wrestled with COVID and learned how to conduct their own lives," he said. "If businesses want to limit capacity, it is their business. They get to operate their business the way they want to. At this time, people and businesses don't need state telling them how to operate."

Abbott cited factors that included a recent drop in cases, a drop in hospitalizations, a capacity to do a large number of tests, and the arrival of more than one vaccine.

"We now have the ability to do well over 100,000 tests per day," he said. "We have antibiotic therapeutic drugs to keep people out of hospitals. And now in Texas and across the country, we have vaccines with the ability to give a million shots per week."

His other rationale was the number of people who've contracted the virus and recovered.

"More than 2.5 million people were lab-tested as having recovered, and typically the real number is 4 to 5 times that number, which means that approximately 10 million or more have recovered from COVID and have proven the ability to beat the disease."

Abbott said that county officials could apply their own restrictions if cases began to climb, but restricted them from enforcement.

"If hospitals in any of the 22 hospital regions in Texas rise above 15 percent in that region for seven straight days, then a county judge may use COVID mitigation strategies in their county," he said. "But under no circumstances can a county judge put anyone in jail for not following mandates, and there can be no penalties for not wearing a mask."

"We must restore livelihoods, and it's a reminder that each person has their own role to play in their own personal safety, with individual responsibility rather than a government mandate," he said.

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RIP, Kay

Kay Granger, trailblazing Texas Congressional leader, dies at 83

House Republican Leadership Speaks To The Media After Conference Meeting

Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Kay Granger, first Republican woman from Texas to serve in the House, has died at age 83.

DALLAS (AP) — Kay Granger, the first Republican woman from Texas to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and who served for nearly three decades, died Sunday at the age of 83, her son J.D. Granger said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a post on X that throughout her career, Granger "broke barriers for women in public service.” He added that she “was a dear friend who will be greatly missed.”

Granger, who began her career as a high school teacher and a businesswoman, accomplished many firsts as a politician. She was the first woman elected mayor of Fort Worth, Texas, and the first Republican woman to chair one of the most powerful committees in Congress, the House Appropriations Committee.

First elected to the House in 1996, she served for nearly three decades but did not seek reelection in 2024 and experienced worsening “health challenges” in her final months in Congress, according to a statement her office released in December 2024. Granger, who didn’t cast a vote in Washington after July 2024, didn’t specify or elaborate on those health challenges but said in the statement that frequent travel to Washington had become “both difficult and unpredictable" since early September of that year.

Granger graduated from Texas Wesleyan University in 1965 and considered a career in fashion design but followed her mother into teaching. She worked in the Birdville school district for nine years, teaching English literature and journalism, according to a profile compiled for the publication “Women in Congress, 1917-2006.”

A divorce would lead to a career change. To earn more money, Granger worked from home selling insurance. Her mother, Alliene Mullendore, who moved in with Granger after a stroke, helped keep an eye on the kids. Granger eventually built a successful insurance business that she managed for more than two decades.

“I was a high school teacher with three children, a 2-year-old and 6-month-old twins, and my husband left," Granger told The Hill in a 2008 profile. “It's the reason I talk so much to working mothers ... you just fight your way through the day.”

Granger got her political start serving on Fort Worth's zoning commission and then won office to the city council. She went on to win election as the city's first female mayor, serving from 1991 to 1995.

Fort Worth Stock Show Grand Entry Gala Mayor Betsy Price, Ed Bass, Congresswoman Kay Granger Former Mayor Betsy Price, Ed Bass, and Congresswoman Kay Granger at an event in Fort Worth. Photo by Krista Bohr

Granger’s “Code: Blue” programs included citizen patrol initiatives that halved the rampant crime rate and partnerships with the private sector that drew major businesses to the city. Her resuscitation of Fort Worth’s flagging economic fortunes drew national attention.

In 1996, she was recruited by both parties to run for the House under their banner, and she won as a Republican.

Upon entering Congress, she was named to an advisory board that consulted then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. She also received seats on three committees: Budget, House Oversight, and Transportation and Infrastructure. She resigned those assignments as part of accepting a seat on the Appropriations Committee.

On the committee, she focused on defense spending, including championing the production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in Fort Worth.

When Republicans took charge of the House in 2023, Granger became the committee's chair, where she sought to enact steeper non-defense spending cuts than the top-line numbers House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden agreed to as part of avoiding an economically disastrous government default.

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