A politician was condemned for calling on schools to reopen because it is ‘Mostly elderly & Hispanics’ dying from coronavirus. Economist Vance Ginn, from the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation has sparked fury over the tweet he sent earlier this week.
He accompanied the stats with a gif (animated image) of Prince Harry dropping a microphone to indicate his satisfaction with the information he’d just shared. Ginn ‘s tweet hit out at Texas’s Department of State Health Service over its ‘inaccurate’ coronavirus figures.
He wrote: ‘1) 7-day avg deaths peaked on July 14, 2)Mostly elderly & Hispanics dying, 3)Very few kids die. Why not #openschools, end universal mandates target vulnerable and check those from #Mexico?’
The tweet has since been deleted. Ginn, who previously served in Donald Trump’s administration as associate director for economic policy at the Office of Management and Budget, initially sent a groveling apology.
He wrote: ‘I removed the previous tweet. I apologize for how I poorly communicated as I believe strongly based on my deep faith that every life is precious.
‘My intent was to highlight the positive development of more data available to make better policy decisions and help the vulnerable.’
The politician later apologized for the Prince Harry gif, but appeared to backtrack on apologizing for his wording. He insisted his detractors had taken it ‘woefully out of context out of bad faith.’
He told The Texas Tribune: ‘It’s been brought to my attention that the gif may have been perceived as insensitive. I apologize as that was not my intention.’
Among those who criticized him was fellow Republican Jason Villalba, a Dallas-based Representative who lost his grandfather to coronavirus.
Villalba wrote: ‘This is my grandfather Albert. He was an Hispanic citizen of the U.S. & passed from #Covid.
‘His grandchildren (born in Dallas) lived with him and also got #Covid. They survived. W/ great respect, the death of elderly Hispanics does not necessarily make the schools safe to open.’
Texas is one of a number of US states that has seen a surge in coronavirus cases in recent weeks, and now has a total of 413,000 cases and 6,528 deaths.
The Lone Star State’s surge now appears to be slowing. Meanwhile, the United States has seen more than 4.4million coronavirus infections, and over 150,000 deaths.
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