WASHINGTON – GOP Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick doubled down on earlier controversial comments he made about reopening his state, saying late Monday that there are "more important things than living.”

Speaking during an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Patrick, 70, said he was “vindicated” after receiving backlash for his March comments where he stated “lots of grandparents” would rather gamble their lives with the coronavirus than see an unstable economy for future generations.

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“I’m sorry to say that I was right on this and I’m thankful that now we are now finally beginning to open up Texas and other states because it’s been long overdue,” he told Carlson on Monday night.

“What I said when I was with you that night is there are more important things than living. And that’s saving this country for my children and my grandchildren and saving this country for all of us,” Patrick continued. “I don’t want to die, nobody wants to die, but man we’ve got to take some risks and get back in the game and get this country back up and running.”

Patrick told Carlson that “every life is valuable,” but he believes "our country should not have been locked down," and he questioned the science that led states around the country to shut their states down to flatten the curve from coronavirus.

“They told us, Tucker, to follow the science. Well, what science?” Patrick said. “At the end of January, Dr. [Anthony] Fauci, who I have great respect for, said this wasn’t a big issue. Three weeks later we were going to lose two million people, and another few weeks later it was 100,000 to 200,000. Now it’s under 60,000.”

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President Donald Trump announced guidelines last week for states to start opening their economies, and cited a handful of states taking steps toward a "safe, gradual and phased opening." These included Texas, Vermont and Ohio. He is pushing to relax the U.S. lockdown by May 1, a plan that hinges partly on more coronavirus testing.

Patrick claimed that it was wrong for Texas to shut down at all because it has been a small percentage of the large population that has passed away.

Texas has a population of almost 29 million people, according to 2019 population estimates. At the time of Patrick's Monday night television hit, the coronavirus had infected 19,458 Texans, which led to 495 fatalities.

By Tuesday afternoon, 20,196 cases had been reported in the state, with 517 Texans perishing, according to the state's health department.

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced executive orders April 17 that will ease some of the restrictions on retail stores and parks, but he said all schools, public and private, will remain closed for the rest of the school year.

A record 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits over the past month, erasing a decade of job gains as the nation grapples with the unprecedented shutdown of the U.S. economy to contain the coronavirus.

Thousands of citizens from multiple states have taken to the streets following their state's closures, and the economic hardship that has followed, demanding their states open up.

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Fauci, longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned against rushing into reopening states, saying Monday that, "If you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you’re gonna set yourself back. So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it’s going to backfire.”

Almost 1,500 Americans died Monday, raising the toll to more than 43,000 among 800,000-plus confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Contributing: Joel Shannon, Lorenzo Reyes, Jessica Menton