State ban on mask mandates 'doesn't prohibit using masks,' Abbott said

The Texas Supreme Court's temporary halt earlier this week to lower court decisions overruling a state ban on mask mandates doesn't mean people can't wear masks, Gov. Greg Abbott said in a social media post.

Mask wearing shouldn't be mandated, Abbott said in a Twitter post issued shortly after the Supreme Court's decision on Aug. 15 in mask mandate 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 local school districts and counties exercised local autonomy by issuing mask mandates, despite Abbott's executive order late last month restricting local mask mandates. Lower courts previously backed local mask mandates.

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 July 29 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 in this part of 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 mask mandate.

"There will be no mask mandate imposed, and the reasons for that are very clear," Abbott told KPRC-TV in Houston. "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."

Soon after Abbott's KPRC interview, Texas surged past New York in COVID deaths and Texas hospitals currently are overwhelmed by new COVID cases.