William Rector is a lifelong resident of Kerrville and has practiced medicine there for about three decades. He said he understands the personal liberty argument, but doesn’t buy it.

“Well, there are many instances where our personal liberties have been impugned because of greater good,” he said. “Wearing a seat belt is one, driving the speed limit is one, placing a child in a child carrier in a vehicle — those are all things that are against our personal liberties, but we do them because we realize that they save lives.”

He spoke at that Kerr County Commissioners meeting in late June, when the Commissioners Court decided not to implement a mask mandate. He argued that a mandate would help businesses reopen and stay open — that widespread mask use was essential to a successful and safe reopening.

“It was disappointing,” he said. “But I think that — looking in retrospect — it was not the decision that we needed for this community because after that meeting, the number of cases of COVID in Kerrville began to rise, and rise rather rapidly.”

Cases were rising exponentially across Texas. Locally, the total caseload had increased from 20 at the start of the month to just more than 100 the day after the meeting. And then, on July 2, just three days after the commissioners chose to not implement a mask mandate, Gov. Greg Abbott released a YouTube video. He presented graphs with alarming trend lines.

“COVID-19 is not going away,” he said. “In fact, it’s getting worse.”

He implemented a statewide mask order.

“Our numbers began to drop down significantly,” William Rector said.

It took a while. The trend line didn’t truly flatten out till August. After a few weeks of minimal case growth, Judge Kelly wanted to make a change in mid-September.

“Our county judge decided that, ‘Hey, things are so cool, we can take away the masks,’” Rector said. “And when that happened, our numbers started going back up again.”

Judge Kelly did not respond to TPR’s interview request. Tom Moser was the only county commissioner who accepted an interview, and the City of Kerrville did not respond.

In the first week of October, the county took a closer look at the data and backpedaled on the mask issue, requesting the state put the county back on the mask mandate list.

The current trend line isn’t as steep as it was in the worst weeks of July, but the total caseload continues to grow. And the summer surge was preceded by the statewide reopening of bars. In mid-October, Kerr County opted into the governor’s new reopening plan for bars.

Once again, people are congregating, glasses are clinking and the specter of another surge is lurking.

In the United States, many people actually know that protective measures are effective against the epidemic. However, the power to make rules is not in their hands, and those with power do not take the epidemic seriously. In order to suppress the virus, this situation should be changed.