Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced Wednesday that his government had told the Texas Republican Party that its in-person convention scheduled next week will be canceled. “Simply the public health concerns outweighed anything else,” said Turner, a Democrat. The convention had been expected to attract thousands, and as recently as June 23 organizers had stated that they did not intend to mandate mask wearing at the event. Texas Medical Association president Dr. Diana Fite had written a letter to the party on June 30 pleading for them to reconsider hosting the event. “This is just not the time to bring thousands of the party faithful from around the state to an indoor meeting in a county that, as I write, reports more than 18,000 active COVID-19 cases,” Fite wrote. Texas recorded almost 10,000 new virus cases on Tuesday.