Tucked away in the hills of central Texas, the small city of Fredericksburg still feels like a bustling Christmas village this year, mostly unchanged by the coronavirus pandemic.
Last week, a soft pink sunset descended over Marktplatz square, soundtracked by holiday music and children laughing. Tiny tots climbed aboard gingerbread train cutouts as older kids zoomed around a makeshift ice skating rink, their required “face coverings” dangling well below their mouths like scarves.
Along Main Street, where crowds popped in and out of boutiques, one woman savored samples at the specialty food store. A punny T-shirt urging “SOCIALism DISTANCING” hung prominently in one of the shop windows, and at dusk, onlookers from around the state – many of them maskless – gathered close to see the city’s elaborate holiday lights flicker on.
“It looks like we asked more people to come into town, instead of less people,” said Catherine Kuhlmann, the infectious disease control officer for Gillespie county, which includes Fredericksburg. “It’s like ants on a sugar cube.”
Between an influx of Covid-fatigued vacationers taking advantage of touristy holiday attractions and misinformed residents adamantly opposed to wearing masks, Gillespie county has inevitably fallen prey to the same uptick in coronavirus cases that has gripped much of Texas in recent weeks. At least one in 23 members of the rural community has been infected since January, according to the New York Times, and free testing earlier this month yielded a nearly 18% positivity rate.
“I am very concerned for the Hill Country at this point,” Kuhlmann said. “I would like to say that we’ve hit our worst, but I don’t think we have.”
Across Texas, more than 9,500 Covid-19 patients are languishing in hospitals and roughly 264,000 infections remain active, relegating the state to a dangerous “red zone” that merits an aggressive response, the White House coronavirus task force suggested in a report earlier this month.
But even as people continue to pile inside restaurants and bars, getting together with friends and discarding their face coverings, Texas’ Republican leaders have avoided the politically controversial tactics used elsewhere to save lives.
“We are not going to have any more lockdowns in the state of Texas,” said Governor Greg Abbott ahead of Thanksgiving, a position he defended by claiming shutdowns were ineffective, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Abbott’s more localized plan, devised months ago, requires particularly hard-hit regions to scale back reopenings where Covid-19 patients represent over 15% of hospital capacity for seven days straight. The state’s mask mandate – a leftover precaution from the previous, devastating spike in infections over the summer – also remains in effect, and in Fredericksburg, a supplemental order reinforces the requirement for face coverings inside commercial establishments.
But without fines, jail time or any other hardline enforcement mechanism, those policies have been rendered toothless. In practice, whether masks are necessary right now in “the Christmasiest town in Texas” largely falls to the discretion of individual business owners, and there’s no universal consensus despite advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which tells Americans to wear a mask because there is “increasing evidence that cloth face coverings help prevent people who have Covid-19 from spreading the virus to others”.
“Some of them just do not believe in the benefits of wearing a mask, and so they have chosen not to do that,” said Kent Myers, Fredericksburg’s city manager. “We educate them. We informed them. But it ultimately is their choice.”
Despite a recent surge in cases, which Myers expects will continue, he said the city has no plans for new regulations to fight the spread. And, in a county that voted to re-elect President Donald Trump by a 59-point margin in November, even the limited protocols now in place go too far for a subgroup of locals infuriated by what they consider to be an infringement on their personal liberties.
At a city council meeting on 7 December, a roomful of unmasked citizens aired their grievances one-by-one, comparing Fredericksburg’s government to Nazi Germany or an Orwellian state. One woman read a quote she attributed to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, waxing poetic about years of social distancing, microchipping and “benevolent dictatorship”. Another person warned that wearing N95 masks could cause serious injury or death (they do not), then told the mayor that his policies fly in the face of “everything that makes this nation great”.
“There isn’t anyone on this earth that doesn’t recognize the risk of Covid,” a third speaker argued. “If I want to go lick handrails at the hospital, that is my God-given right.”
At Hill Country Memorial, the only hospital in the area, staff have been speaking on the radio, penning letters to the local newspaper and posting on social media since the pandemic’s early days, trying to combat widespread disinformation in Fredericksburg. Like in much of the country, a major point of confusion has been the effectiveness and reasoning behind wearing a face covering, said Jim Partin, the hospital’s chief medical officer.
“It’s a mask,” he said. “It’s not a political statement. It’s a mask.”
Hill Country Memorial is currently treating nine Covid-19 patients and has capacity for just under double that many. With additional nurses provided by the state, they’re in good shape for now, Partin said.
But the holiday season is far from over, and meanwhile, visitors from nearby urban hubs that are getting pummeled by the virus – Austin, Houston, San Antonio – keep flooding into Fredericksburg like it’s a more convenient alternative to Disney World.
Whether for a day trip or weekend getaway, people are grabbing their friends and loved ones to visit wineries, stroll up and down Main Street, browse store merchandise, go for a scenic drive or tour the city’s National Museum of the Pacific War.
“I don’t think there’s any questions that tourists are coming to town, and bringing it with ’em,” said Dave Wisniewski, the local emergency management coordinator.
Eager to get out of San Antonio for the day, Francisco Martinez and Diamond Garcia drove to Fredericksburg to walk around and enjoy the local cuisine before attending a nightly holiday lighting ceremony at Marktplatz. Martinez said he noticed a lot of people not wearing masks, but he had his on and didn’t feel too worried.
“As long as I keep my distance, I think I’m OK,” he said.
A false sense of security pervades the picturesque city, as Texans with cabin fever convince themselves that a vacation in the Hill Country will carry less risk than other, more populous destinations.
“They come to Fredericksburg because they think it’s safe,” Kuhlmann said. “And I don’t know if it always is.”
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