Thread by @ErinForYall

🧵 I represent a toss up district. 49.5% of the people I represent trust Governor Abbott more than me.

My office and I have done mask distributions, helped set up testing, phonebanked to get info out about vaccines. We brainstorm every week on how to reach more folks.

Cases in Hays County have increased more than 8 fold in the last month. Hospitalizations have shot up in our region. I’m hearing from panicked parents about sending their kids back to school. I’m hearing from folks angry and frustrated that they got vaccinated but others didn’t.

Here’s the problem. We live in heterogenous communities in House District 45. There’s no school in Hays County where all the kids have Republican parents or Democratic parents. We live together.

That’s why the politicization of COVID has been so frustrating.

It’s not about personal responsibility. It’s about the safety of whole communities.

I asked Dr. Sarmistha Hauger, a pediatric infectious disease specialist, what the best way to give our kids a normal school year is. Her answer: Everyone who’s eligible getting vaccinated.

But when you look at vaccination numbers by zip code in HD 45, the percentage of eligible folks get vaccinated has a direct tie to partisanship. More Democratic, more vaccinated. Less Democratic, less vaccinated.

This in spite of better access to health care in the R areas.

The partisanship of the COVID response has hurt both the deniers and the people who’ve been careful this whole year and a half. No person is an island, particularly with infectious diseases.

I don’t blame the individual community members. I blame the leaders.

I blame leaders who sought and distributed anti-science information again and again.

I blame leaders who took precautions themselves but were too worried about contradicting Trump to say it out loud.

I blame leaders who hoped COVID would just go away and didn’t prepare.

There’s been this same “personal responsibility” narrative going through the TX lege. “If you’re worried about COVID, then just talk to your district.”

I do talk to my district, constantly. But almost half of them trust Gov Abbott or Trump more than me.

If I say, “wearing a mask will help keep your community safe” and Trump makes fun of mask-wearers? I lose that convo with half.

If I tell folks the vaccine is safe and effective and our best chance at beating COVID, and the R county chair lies about it, I lose with half.

There isn’t Republican science and Democratic science. There’s just science.

There isn’t Republican public health and Democratic public health. There’s just public health.

I’m grateful more of my colleagues are standing up for the path forward. I wish they’d been here sooner.

Putting these anti-science ideas back in the bottle doesn’t happen overnight though. We’re losing people right now, because we didn’t stand together, R and D, and tell the truth.

I wish I had answers to fix it right now, but I don’t. I’m just sad we’re here again. /🧵