Gregg Popovich blasts Texas governor Greg Abbott over lifting mask mandate

‘You get infected and you die? That’s the way it goes. We have to open up!’

There seems to be a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, but CDC experts are warning that now is not the time to let our guard down. Even as more and more people are getting vaccinated, and cases across the country start to drop, it’s even more important that we be vigilant in wearing masks so we can fully curb the coronavirus.

That’s what makes Texas governor Greg Abbott’s decision to drop the state’s mask mandate and allow businesses to open up at 100% capacity by March 10 all the more baffling.

Abbott’s decision has been widely derided by state law makers, health experts, pundits and of course, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich.

Never one to shy away from giving his opinion, Pop blasted Abbott for his shortsightedness.

“It puts a lot of businesses in a tough spot,” Popovich said Tuesday. “They’re trying to do a good job of keeping everybody safe. Of course they want to open up. But getting rid of masks just seems ignorant to me. We have to have instant gratification and act like the pandemic is over? We already went through this once, and now we’re going to do it again? When you go into those restaurants, you take those masks off anyway when you’re eating. So how hard can it be? Now they’re going to have to talk to people that come in. And the people that didn’t want to wear masks in the first place, how do the businesses get them to wear masks? Well, now they don’t have to, so now there will be infections, one would think. But when all of a sudden we act like it’s over with and all of the science tells us the opposite, you’re basically saying, ‘You get infected and you die? That’s the way it goes. We have to open up!’ That’s not the way to do it. This is really ridiculous.”

Give ’em hell, Pop.