A Message From Focused Care's Founder

Mark McKenzie, CEO

A Mixed Bag

By definition a mixed bag is an assortment of things or people. Anyway you use the expression it’s in reference to things grouped together that are not all alike.

Texas is a bit of a mixed bag right now with the announcement of Governor Abbott lifting all pandemic-related restrictions and fully opening up the state with the goal of churning our state’s economy and returning us to a time we all yearn for.

That does not mean the veil has lifted and everything is as it was before COVID. Some businesses will continue to enforce a mask rule and worry, to quote a Fort Worth small business owner who said the Governor’s dictum in effect on March 10 is “putting us in the firing line where you have to make the best decision for you and your business and you’re going to be fighting people who are literally celebrating in the streets,” a new spike in positive cases or an angry and jubilant fracas might result. Texas courts are cleared for in-person trials and local officials will decide if mask mandates remain in place.

So in terms of what we are likely to encounter wherever we go and whatever we do in our great state, we will come upon a mixed bag that includes restrictions still in place, a combined response or a no holds barred approach without a hint of the cloud and impediments we’ve been living with under for the last year.

I plan to view Governor Abbott’s bold move with CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM.

As we in our line of work well know, employing mitigation practices to ward off this virus works. We also know the vaccination rate increases every day and we also know hospitalizations are down. We don’t need a pie chart and data to tell us this – we’re on the frontline – we know. We also know we do not want to continue to travel the road we’ve been on in 2020 and would happily take a new route at the appropriate juncture.

Feeling restricted from our daily lives, hiding our own smiles and not being able to truly see the expressions of others, is not the way any of us want to live. Never did most of us think during the holidays of 2019 that our traditions would be put on hold, that young children would be robbed of one of the most fundamental aspects of life, that we would be on our own firing line as we tried to determine how to keep ourselves and our residents safe.

But we are in a different place now. I hope we can all make that turn in the road at just the right time and when we do greet each other with a handshake, a hug and a radiant, mask-less smile it is knowing we’ve done the best that circumstances allow us.