Hundreds of others have died in Hidalgo County, on the Mexican border, but the governor thwarted efforts to return to the lockout.
72 death notices were placed on a full page of the Monitor newspaper in Hidalgo County.
The fine print entries, stacked in five sorted columns, mentioned Covid-19. But 27 citizens of the South Texas network had died from the virus that day, 22 the day before and 35 the day before.
“I’ve never realized this in my life,” recalls John M. Kreidler, director of a local funeral home whose circle of relatives has run the Kreidler funeral home in McAllen for over a century.
It’s before this month, but things have gotten worse ever since. The coronavirus pandemic stalks almost everything in this component of the Rio Grande Valley, where more than 92% of the nearly 900,000 inhabitants identify as Hispanic or Latino.
Hand sanitizer machines and giant containers with masks and gloves surround shoppers at the regional grocery store. Outside the Nomad Shrine Club, a ruined event area that has become an emerging hub, citizens sign up for a long line of other people in cars looking for a Covid-19 check with quick results. Even Tex Mex, a gentlemen’s club, has a dark message to his clients: “Dress again.”
“The Rio Grande Valley has the hotspot of a hotspot,” said Iván Meléndez, Hidalgo County Health Authority and a working physician. “We’re at the epicenter of coronavirus in the United States.”
Type 2 diabetes and obesity are among the pre-existing situations known to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as threat points for Covid-19-related “serious diseases”. Meanwhile, fear of exorbitant hospital expenses deters others who are not insured from seeking medical attention. These and other socioeconomic points have caused the biggest tragedies of the virus to minorities disproportionately in the United States, with Latinos hospitalized at more than 4 times the rate of their white counterparts.
Hidalgo County is also located along the U.S.-Mexico border, and about 102,000 unauthorized immigrants who would possibly be afraid to seek a medical remedy are on the sidelines. Large families are an ideal vector of the virus, as are those that still flock to beaches and flea markets on weekends.
467 network members have already died from Covid-19, according to the county, the highest since Texas reopened in May. But the state government has actively thwarted efforts to return to the blockade, prioritizing economic energy even as the death toll increases.
Leonardo Tremari is afraid to go paint at a Walmart supercenter in McAllen, but he, and many other painters, have yet to paint. “I have no choice, ” he says to the Guardian, laughing tenderly.
Last week, Hidalgo County Judge Richard F. Cortez ordered citizens to stay at home and encouraged non-essential businesses to restrict their services. But a spokesman for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott temporarily undermined Cortez’s authority, saying it was “just a recommendation.” The dizzying politics of ping-pong is an extension of a broader national politicization of the pandemic in an election year, where the mere suggestion of dressing in a mask has become a partisan dog whistle.
Some others in Hidalgo County remain convinced that the existing fitness crisis is masked or exaggerated, despite the fact that at the moment, they are all at the top within a few degrees of separation from those who suffered or died because of Covid-19, Melendez. Said. More than 15,000 other people tested positive in the county and last week hospitals were complete with more than a thousand patients with the virus.
Within weeks, Melendez put his sixth-grade instructor on life support, opened a frame bag to play a farewell video of a son to a patient who died in the past, and encountered a seriously ill nurse he knew for 30 years. years, which he didn’t even recognize at first sight. Non-public heartbreaking moments abound, as do thorny gray areas.
“There is an ethical and ethical dilemma in each and every position we take on,” he said.
Hospital emergency departments are suffering to cope, so other wings have become Covid equipment, even when they are not equipped to do so. A fitness worker at DHR Health in Edinburgh, who spoke under anonymity status, described the patients in the hallways, two other people in one room and “all at all times” in a rehabilitation centre that was switched to the fitness emergency centre. . The construction is not made to supply such important oxygen, they said, and once stopped.
“Everyone who is a fitness professional here feels less,” they said. “We’re just looking to do what we can with the terrible resources we’ve been given.”
The instance explosion is expanding throughout the day as new infections are counted by loads or even thousands. While Texas’ reopening plan has been based on symbiotic dating between control and contact search for the spread of the virus, investigations into Hidalgo County contacts have become ineffective, Melendez said. There are too few touch markers and too many positive verification results.
Both check a payment of $75 or $125. None of them take out insurance.
Most patients say they feel depressed, said Genesis Gonzalez, a medical assistant who works in the tent. “The next thing you know, they come back positive.”
While Gonzalez cooked in the Texas sun, she wore a short-sleeved medical uniform and mask, and wore her hair with conscientiously collected. She and her colleagues have access to more full protective equipment, she said, but some of them get dizzy or faint if used in a 101-degree climate.
At another control site, Daniela Garza hit the car’s windows with her stethoscope. Its task is to take samples for verification, however, it prescribes nebulizers, antibiotics, inhalers or Z-Paks because some patients do not have the number one doctor of the car or cannot get appointments with the user at this time. About 40-50% of the driving service controls are positive, Garza said. Sometimes you see others who have just lost the circle of family members or enjoy some.
“I tell you, you know, “I have no idea how your loss feels, and I am very sorry for this loss, ” said Garza. But I’m proud of them for coming to do the test themselves so they don’t pass.” go out and denounce others. It’s hard to do. »
At the Kreidler funeral home, the corpses are wrapped in sheets, then placed in a double bag and repacked on the tables in the brewroom because there is no more in the fridge. The crematorium is completely reserved up to 10 days in advance.
Kreidler and his staff, adding his wife and son, paint through the night without much sleep or no normal meals. They’re always in a hurry, and every time a frame goes, it just means that some other position has been opened.
“We need the pandemic to go away,” said the morary funeral director, who is tired of the crisis being treated as a “political football.”
“We have to prevent this — and prevent it now.”