A Dallas County District Court judge is studying law, testimony, and legal arguments as she decides whether Dallas County can issue mask mandates in the face of an order by Governor Greg Abbott.
Lawyers for Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins are asking the court to issue an injunction that would effectively give Jenkins the right to declare a public emergency and require masks to be worn.
As the situation stands, Jenkins can only ask that masks be worn, without any penalties if they are not, because of an executive order by Abbott that specifically bars local officials from imposing mask mandates.
During the six-hour hearing, attorneys for Jenkins called witnesses who pleaded for mask requirements as a matter of a public health crisis.
Three different doctors said the County was winning the war on the coronavirus after three vaccines became available, until the emergence of the Delta variance, something they agreed was a game-changer.
“What has been identified is that persons who are fully vaccinated can still carry large amounts of the Delta variance and so it can then be transmitted by persons who have been fully vaccinated,” said Dr. Philip Huang, Director of Dallas County Health and Human Services.
Others are concerned about the growing number of cases that involve children, especially those under age 12 who do not have a vaccine available for them yet.
“You’re seeing more children infected, you’re seeing more children hospitalized,” said Dr. Benjamin Greenberg, a neurologist from UT Southwestern. “One of the things we did not have last year was wide open schools without the same online versions, and in a setting where people aren’t masking.”
It’s the argument over schools that Jenkins is hammering home. One mother of a 7-year-old girl, diagnosed with the rare disease Riboflavin Transporter Deficiency (RTD), told the court her daughter attends classes because there is nothing cognitively wrong with the child. Yet her disease can subject her to life-threatening illnesses that would not affect other children.
“I’m really worried that she’ll get sick. That you’re talking about this year, a week ago. I’m caught between a rock and a hard place.”
But despite her pleas for school officials to be allowed to require masks, attorney Benjamin Dower, who represents the Governor, says the issue at hand is not whether masks work, he argued it's over who has control.
“Does Judge Jenkins and does Dallas County have the authority to impose the mask mandate contrary to GA 38 (the governor’s executive order) or not? And the debate about the public policy involving masks is really irrelevant to that central legal question.”
Judge Tonya Parker has the matter under advisement. No matter which way she rules it's expected to be appealed.
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