Texas Governor Lifts Mask Mandate, Business Restrictions

The easing of restrictions will take effect on March 10. After about a monthlong shutdown last year, Texas allowed businesses to reopen to varying degrees beginning in May. Mr. Abbott instituted a mask mandate in July, as Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations increased. More than 44,000 Texans have died of Covid-19. The state has logged nearly 33,000 new cases in the past week, an increase from mid-February, but a significant decrease from January.

Mr. Abbott’s move, affecting some 29 million residents of the second-largest state, comes after some smaller states, such as Iowa, Montana and North Dakota, have removed mask mandates.

On Tuesday, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves also said he would be dropping the state’s mask mandate and all business-capacity restrictions. Mr. Reeves, a Republican, said hospitalizations from the virus have decreased.

“It was never to prevent all possible spread of Covid-19,” he said of the previous orders. “It was always about protecting the integrity of our healthcare system.”

Andy Slavitt, a White House senior adviser for Covid-19 response, said the Biden administration understood the pressure on governors to ease guidelines but disagreed with decisions by Texas and Mississippi to lift their mask mandates and other restrictions.

“We think it’s a mistake to lift these mandates too early,” Mr. Slavitt said in an interview with CNN. “Masks are saving a lot of lives.”

Other places have also started easing restrictions, and movie theaters, casinos and restaurants are slowly starting to attract visitors again. Some employees are heading back into the office.

In Chicago, Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday that bars, restaurants and indoor events can reopen at 50% capacity. The city also reopened schools to elementary-school students on Monday and plans to welcome back middle-school students next week. Also Tuesday, Virginia outdoor sports and entertainment venues were permitted to reopen with limited capacity.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said movie theaters can reopen at limited capacity starting March 5.

Last weekend, 42% of North American theaters opened for business, up from 38% the week before, according to media measurement company Comscore.

In Las Vegas, casinos are expected to raise the capacity limit to 50% starting March 15, with mask mandates still in place. Casino operators have reported busy weekends, but midweek days remain slow without big trade shows.

As of Tuesday, 6.6% of the Texas population had been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and the state had a 13.5% positivity rate for Covid-19 tests, according to Johns Hopkins University. The World Health Organization and other health authorities have recommended a jurisdiction’s positivity rate fall below 5% before lifting mitigation restrictions.

Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned states Monday against relaxing restrictions. She said she understood the temptation to do so, given the reduction in cases from a few months ago, but that progress had stalled and more transmissible variants of the disease were a threat.

“Please hear me clearly: At this level of cases, with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained,” Dr. Walensky said. “These variants are a very real threat to our people and our progress.”

Some Democrats said Mr. Abbott’s move to reopen was reckless. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the elected executive of the county that includes Houston, said the decision would slow the state’s return to normalcy.

“Every time public health measures have been pulled back, we’ve seen a spike in hospitalizations,” Ms. Hidalgo said. “We’re inching closer to the finish line of this pandemic—now is not the time to reverse the gains we’ve worked so hard to achieve.”

Ms. Hidalgo suggested that Mr. Abbott’s move could be a way to distract from a recent catastrophic electrical failure during a week of subfreezing weather that has been blamed for dozens of deaths statewide.

Mr. Abbott said more widespread personal protective equipment, or PPE, and Covid-19 tests, better medical treatments, increasing vaccinations and the number of Texans who have already had Covid-19—he estimated as many as 10 million—made it unnecessary to continue restrictions.

Mr. Abbott added that Covid-19 still exists and said Texans have learned daily habits to avoid getting it.

“Removing state mandates does not end personal responsibility,” he said.

—Katherine Sayre, R.T. Watson and Sabrina Siddiqui contributed to this article.

Write to Elizabeth Findell at [email protected]