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

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

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

Alexandra Villarreal
Fri 10 Jul 2020 11.00 BST
Last modified on Fri 10 Jul 2020 15.48 BST

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. Starr County isn’t even the hardest hit community in the Rio Grande Valley. After a rushed reopening, the state is scrambling to combat the virus by pausing elective surgeries and closing bars, while some officials worry it is too little, too late.

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 96% Hispanic or Latino, they acted fast to curtail the contagion.

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The inflection point came when the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, unilaterally decided to reopen the state, and stripped local governments of their power in the process. By early May, malls, restaurants, movie theaters, gyms and salons threw open their doors, albeit at limited capacity. Texans lost their fear of the virus as politicians told them it was safe to re-emerge from lockdown, and once masks became politicized, localities could no longer require their use.

-snip-

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

[dalton99a]

1. There is a lot of blood on Abbott's hands.

Goddamn Trump ass-licker

[ResistantAmerican17]

2. The inflection point came when the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, unilaterally decided to reopen the

state in the process!! THIS!!! When I see Abbott’s pathetic ass trying to get people to wear masks now, after this state is literally exploding with death and disease, I want to vomit. We here in Texas, those of us who masked, distanced, and took this seriously, should call it what is is. In his zeal to keep his job as one of drumph’s most dependable fluffers, abbott signed the death warrants for countless Texans. Shame!! Shame!!! Shame!

[Paladin]

3. Fuck you, Greg Abbott. Fuck you where you breathe. (nt)

[Scruffy1]

4. Same here in El Paso.

We were runing 40-80 cases per day. Now it is 300-500. our local officials pleaded for us and he said no. Makes me wish I believed in Hell for people like Abbott.