Neanderthal – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

Texas governor Greg Abbott Thursday criticized President Joe Biden for calling his decision to lift Covid-19 restrictions and masking mandates earlier this week “Neanderthal thinking,” making undocumented immigrants for the persistent Outbreak of the state responsible.

Abbott’s comments come after its much-criticized decision on Tuesday to lift most of the state’s Covid-19 restrictions, including a statewide mask mandate. Texas businesses will be allowed to open “100%” starting March 10, he said. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves took a similar move around the same time.

Biden on Wednesday hit governors for a “big mistake”, adding that “the last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking”.

Abbott told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the comment was “not the kind of word a president should use” and accused immigrants crossing the southern border of spreading the coronavirus. The Republican governor said the Biden government “refused to test them for the virus.”

“The Biden government has released immigrants in South Texas who exposed Texans to Covid. Some of those people were put on buses and took that Covid to other states in the United States,” Abbott told CNBC. “This is a Neanderthal approach to dealing with the Covid situation.”

While the Republican governor failed to provide details, Telemundo reported Tuesday that some migrants released by Border Patrol in the Texas city of Brownsville subsequently tested positive for Covid-19. Since testing began in the city on January 25, 108 migrants have tested positive for Covid-19, which corresponds to 6.3% of all test subjects, according to the report.

“The Biden government must stop importing Covid into our country,” Abbott said.

Senior U.S. health officials have repeatedly urged states not to lift Covid-19 restrictions as statewide coronavirus cases and deaths stall and highly communicable variants threaten to “hijack” the recent decline in infections.

Abbott, however, defended his decision to repeal the state’s mask requirements, claiming that Texans already know that “the safe standard is to wear a mask, among other things.”

“Do you really need the state to tell you what you already know for your personal behavior?” Abbott told CNBC.

The governor added that the state’s coronavirus infections are “at a four-month low” and Texas hospitals stand ready to treat an influx of patients if needed. According to a CNBC analysis of the CNBC analysis compiled by Johns Hopkins University, Texas reports a daily average of around 7,265 new cases over the past week. That’s a decrease from the high of more than 20,400 daily cases the state reported in January.

However, new infections are creeping back across the state, with the average daily new cases increasing nearly 13% from a week ago.

Abbott said most of the state’s coronavirus that spread over the holidays was being driven by indoor gatherings, not restaurants and other businesses. The newly lifted restrictions “aren’t really that transformative” because the state’s mask mandate was not enforced and businesses were already 75% busy, he said.

“Maybe it seems like a big difference to the people in New York,” Abbott said.

– CNBC’s Will Feuer contributed to this report.

United States President Joe Biden speaks during a non-partisan meeting on cancer legislation in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington March 3, 2021.

Alex Brandon | Pool | Reuters

President Joe Biden on Wednesday beat up states that lifted Covid-19 restrictions on businesses and lifted mask mandates for local residents, calling the moves a “big mistake”.

Texas governor Greg Abbott and Mississippi governor Tate Reeves, both Republicans, announced Tuesday that they would allow companies to reopen at 100% capacity and remove mask mandates. Biden’s remarks were in response to questions raised by the press specifically about the two states.

“Look, I hope by now everyone has realized that these masks make a difference,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “We are on the verge of fundamentally changing the nature of this disease because we can get vaccines into people’s arms … The last, the last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking.” In the meantime, everything is fine . Take off your mask. Forget it, “It’s still important.”

He added that it was “critical, critical, critical” that state officials “follow science” and encourage Americans to continue wearing masks and following all public health guidelines.

“I know you all know,” Biden told reporters. “I wish the hell some of our elected officials would.”

In response to Biden’s remarks, Reeves tweeted, “Mississippians don’t need handlers. When the numbers go down, they can judge their decisions and listen to experts. I think we should trust Americans, not offend them.”

When announcing their decisions, Reeves and Abbott cited the falling number of new Covid-19 cases and the increasing availability of vaccines as reasons for lifting the restrictions. However, federal officials warned that the decline in new cases appears to be stalling and that the emergence of new coronavirus variants could lead to a resurgence.

Abbott representatives did not immediately return CNBC’s request for comment.

Both governors used a similar tone in their announcements on Tuesday, saying that people should continue to follow public health guidelines, but that statewide mandates are not appropriate. Despite the removal of the restrictions, some companies in both states have announced that they will still need masking in their branches.

On Monday, before the two governors made their announcements, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned state officials too quickly to lift public health restrictions.

In the past seven days, the United States reported an average of more than 65,400 new cases a day, according to Johns Hopkins University. That’s well below the high of about 250,000 new cases per day the country reported in early January, but it’s still well above the infection rate the US saw the summer when the virus swept the sun belt.

“At this level of cases where variants spread, we will completely lose the hard-earned ground we won,” Walensky said on Monday. “With these statistics, I’m really concerned that more states are rolling back the exact public health measures we have recommended to protect people from Covid-19.”

“Please listen to me clearly: at this level of cases with spreading variant, we are going to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained,” she said.