Texas border county had 'model' Covid-19 response - then the governor stepped in

[marmar]

Texas border county had 'model' Covid-19 response – then the governor stepped in
Officials in Latino Starr county say Greg Abbott’s reopening orders have rendered them toothless, and cases are surging


(Guardian UK) Five residents from Starr county on Texas’s southern border died on a single day last week after contracting Covid-19. New infections in the rural border community of around 65,000 people have soared in recent weeks, and two intubated patients had to be airlifted to Dallas and San Antonio when overwhelmed local hospitals couldn’t care for them.

Texas has become one of the US’s new coronavirus hotspots, with new confirmed cases surging to around 14% of the country’s total, when measured by a seven-day average. Elective surgeries were paused this week as the state tries to free up hospital beds for increasing numbers of Covid-19 patients.

But Starr county’s public officials knew months ago that is was especially vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic: roughly one in three residents lives in poverty, a sizable slice of the population doesn’t have health insurance, and risk factors such as diabetes and obesity prevail. To protect their constituents, who are more than 99% Latino, they acted fast to curtail the contagion.

They developed what officials said was at the time the only drive-through testing site south of San Antonio. They closed schools. They implemented a stay-at-home order, curfew and mandatory face coverings. Only when necessary, they flexed their authority to fine and even jail anyone who flouted the law. ...........(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/10/texas-starr-county-covid-19-model-greg-abbott

[soothsayer]

1. Tragic. And horrible