The Texas Supreme Court's decision Sunday to place a temporary stay on local mask mandates is widely seen as a win for Gov. Greg Abbott's push for individual responsibility and decision-making amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
His ban is on mandates, not on the masks themselves, Abbott said in a Twitter post issued shortly after the Supreme Court's decision on Sunday, in cases out of Dallas and Bexar counties.
"The ban doesn't prohibit using masks," Abbott said in his Twitter post. "Anyone who wants to wear a mask can do so, including in schools."
Abbott has himself been known to mask up, at least on occasion.
The Supreme Court's ruling came after some Texas school districts and municipalities exercised their autonomy by issuing mask mandates, despite Abbott's July 29 executive order prohibiting them. The Supreme Court's ruling overturned lower court rulings that blocked the enforcement of the governor's order, as requested by officials in Dallas and Bexar counties. Lower courts in these counties are still holding hearings on the matter.
Abbott's executive order stressed individual responsibility and self-determination in mask-wearing decisions.
"Texans have mastered the safe practices that help to prevent and avoid the spread of COVID-19," Abbott said in his executive order. "They have the individual right and responsibility to decide for themselves and their children whether they will wear masks, open their businesses and engage in leisure activities."
Abbott's current position that mask wearing should be a matter of personal choice is a bit of an about-face from his actions earlier in the pandemic. Last summer, Abbott issued an executive order that all Texans age 10 and older were "to wear a face covering over the nose and mouth in public spaces in counties with 20 or more positive COVID-19 cases."
Abbott said in July that he would not impose a new statewide mask mandate.
"There will be no mask mandate imposed, and the reasons for that are very clear," Abbott told KPRC-TV News in Houston on July 20."There are so many people who have immunities to COVID, whether it be through the vaccination, whether it be through their own exposure and their recovery from it, which would be acquired immunity."
Shortly after Abbott's KPRC-TV interview, Texas surged past New York in COVID-19 deaths, the Houston Chronicle reported, and hospital ICUs in the state now are overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases.