Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was criticized on Twitter for saying Democrats and members of the black community were responsible for the rise in COVID-19 numbers in the state.
Patrick said he respects the rights of people who do not want to take the vaccine but argued that Democrats are “doing nothing” for black people, who make up “a significant, high number of unvaccinated people” and “over 90% of [whom] vote for Democrats.”
“Most of the numbers are with the unvaccinated, and the Democrats like to blame Republicans on that,” he told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham on the Ingraham Angle Thursday night. “Well, the biggest group in most states are African Americans who have not been vaccinated. The last time I checked, over 90% of them vote for Democrats in their major cities and major counties, so it’s up to the Democrats to get, just as that it’s up to Republicans, to try to get as many people vaccinated.”
VACCINATED TEXAS GOV. GREG ABBOTT TESTS POSITIVE FOR COVID-19
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick blames unvaccinated Black people for Covid spread in his state pic.twitter.com/CfwajqECLM
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 20, 2021
Patrick’s challenger for his 2022 reelection bid, Democrat Mike Collier, shot back at Patrick’s Thursday remarks, tweeting on Friday that “more than 55,000 Texans are dead because of Dan Patrick’s failed leadership — not because of Black Texans.”
“With record case counts and overrun [intensive care units], Texas is a sinking ship, and Dan Patrick is watching from a lifeboat,” Collier said in a separate tweet on Wednesday.
Russell Foster, another Democratic candidate running for Congress in 2022, argued that Patrick was not the only Texas leader “pushing these awful racist views.”
“That’s odd because the reports I hear from the hospitals in my district are that they are full of unvaccinated white people that refused the vaccine,” Foster said. “It’s not just Dan Patrick that’s pushing these awful racist views. Most Texas GOP leaders including Pat Fallon are doing the same.”
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There are over 1.2 million black residents in Texas who have been vaccinated with at least one dose of the COVID-19 shot, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services. Roughly 3.5 million people, or 12.9%, make up the state’s black population, according to census data.
So far, Texas has had 15.9 million people receive at least one dose of a vaccine, and more than 13.2 million are fully vaccinated, according to DSHS. The department also reported more than 20,000 new cases on Wednesday, adding that there were only 322 available ICU beds throughout the state.
