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Dan Patrick, the Republican lieutenant governor of Texas, has refused to apologise for blaming rising Covid-19 hospitalisations and deaths on unvaccinated African Individuals, feedback one Black Houston official referred to as “racist and flat out incorrect”.
Doubling down on his remarks to Fox Information, Patrick blamed “Democrat social media trolls” and stated “Democrats proceed to play politics with folks’s lives”.
Sylvester Turner, the Democratic mayor of Houston, who’s African American, stated Patrick’s feedback have been “offensive and shouldn’t be ignored”.
Amid widespread concern over the unfold of the Delta variant, Texas is experiencing its highest hospitalisation charges since January. It emerged this week that the state had requested federal authorities for more mortuary trucks.
The overwhelming majority of Covid-19 hospitalisations and deaths within the US are amongst those that haven’t acquired a vaccine.
Talking to Fox Information host Laura Ingraham on Thursday night time, Patrick stated: “The most important group in most states are African Individuals who haven’t been vaccinated.
“The final time I checked over 90% of them vote for Democrats of their main cities and main counties, so it’s as much as the Democrats – simply because it’s as much as the Republicans – to attempt to get as many individuals vaccinated.”
In his assertion on Friday, Patrick said federal and state information “clearly point out that Black vaccination charges are considerably decrease than White or Hispanic charges”. However statistics from the Texas well being division didn’t again him up.
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