Post reports is brought to you by Purina. Purina cares about a clean future.

That's why they have hundreds of recipes crafted without artificial flavors or preservatives.

On top of that, they are committed to using more recyclable pet food packaging.

Learn more at Purina.com slash cares.

From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports.

I'm Martine Powers. It's Friday, July 17th.

For the past two months, Texans have forged a bond of unity and trust.

Just as we united as one state to slow COVID-19, we must also come together to begin rebuilding the lives and the livelihoods of our fellow Texans.

Back in late April, Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas announced that he was beginning to reopen the state's economy.

So with my new executive order, all retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and malls can reopen, may the first.

In that same press conference, he also talked about masks, and he put limits on how much local leaders could actually enforce mask wearing.

We strongly recommend that everyone wear a mask. However, it's not a mandate.

Texas was one of the first states in the country to push forward with reopening its economy.

And they were doing this over the objections of public health experts who said that it was way too soon.

But for a while, it seemed like things were going okay until they weren't.

The moment Memorial Day started coming around.

That's when I was like, oh, here we go, because you can see the beach parties.

You can see gauvets and parties. You can see like all these different things.

People are posting certain people you knew.

That's Cartic Vellery, he's a doctor based in Houston, and so is Brad Lemke.

And as we followed that trajectory, and we started seeing those cases rise, we knew it would.

We just didn't know how quickly and how much.

...