The inconvenience to business and the state coffers is reduced, so it nets out on the other side -- if you live long enough to enjoy the other side.
It also helps to be *not poor* and not *nonwhite*. The known disparity of M&M outcomes makes Gov Abbott's consistent policy of lenience the moral equivalent of genocide. It's a very low key, slow motion genocide, and it is tolerated in part because it is known in advance that *some* are better situated to survive than *others*.
The contempt for life and human health has been nothing if not thoroughgoing, it's been a key element of Gov. Abbott's deadly leadership on COVID from the beginning.