Decisive GOP Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is going ahead with a judicious plan to reopen his state for business on the 1st of May. It will be a graduated effort.

Governor Abbott said during a news conference in Austin, “We’re not just going to pen up and hope for the best. We’re going to open in a way that will also contain the virus and keep us safe… A more strategic approach is required so that we don’t open only to close down again.”

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He is thinking safety first: “We will open in a way that employs safe standards. There is a reason why all businesses in Texas can’t reopen all at once.”

Fox News reports, “Along with retail stores, restaurants and movie theaters, Abbott said that museums and libraries can also reopen on Friday at a 25 percent capacity. Sole proprietors of businesses can also open and doctors and dentists can resume normal operations as well. Abbott added that hospitals will still have to keep 50 percent of their capacity for patients suffering from COVID-19.”

Fox added, “Churches and places of worship, which were allowed to remain open during the state’s stay-at-home orders, are also allowed to expand their capacity provided safe social distancing measures are still enacted. Barber shops, hair salons and bars will still remain closed.”

Many governors have plans of their own, none as ambitious as that of Governor Abbott. If the reopening goes generally according to plan and no major new virus outbreaks are reported, then the Texas Plan could be the outline, if not the model, for other states to do the same.

It could also vault Abbott into the first rank of GOP contenders for the 2024 Republican nomination for president. But wait, there’s more.

There will be pushback as Democrats, for purely political reasons, may castigate Abbott and try to slow down if not stop his plan to put people back to work and gradually return the Lone Star State to a normal way of life.