Border town El Paso: Worse than New York in the spring: Texan city is the USA’s new corona hell
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Texas is the first US state to have more than one million proven corona infections. The worst is in the city of El Paso. There are tents in front of hospitals and mobile cooling units next to cemeteries.
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The US is the country hardest hit by the corona pandemic. Texas is the first US state to exceed one million known infections. No wonder that the health system there threatens to collapse.
The numbers: Over 10 percent of US infections from Texas
Worldwide, only nine countries have more cases of infection than Texas, which has 29 million inhabitants and records more than ten percent of all infections in the United States. Germany has almost three times as many inhabitants, there have been “only” a good 700,000 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic.
In Texas around 10,000 new cases are known every day, in Germany there are currently around twice as many. The number of hospital patients infected with Covid-19 is almost 7,000. Around 1,900 of these are infected in the intensive care unit. For comparison: There are currently a good 3,000 intensive care patients in Germany. On Wednesday alone 141 people died in connection with the virus in Texas, 212 in Germany. A total of almost 20,000 people have died in Texas since the pandemic began, and there have been around 12,000 deaths across Germany. S.Since early October, COVID-19 hospital stays and the seven-day average of new cases in the state have more than doubled.
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In the past few weeks, most of the new infections were found in El Paso, a border town with 680,000 residents. Of the roughly 7,000 Covid-19 patients being treated in hospitals across the state, one in seven is in El Paso. Half of all beds in El Paso are now occupied by Covid-19 patients. Almost 300 are in the intensive care unit.
The dramatic effects: mobile cooling units for corpses
The hospitals in the region are bursting at the seams and no longer have the capacity to admit more patients. A provisional hospital was therefore built in the city’s convention center, and numerous tents were set up to take care of patients.
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In view of the increasing number of intensive care patients, six mobile cooling units have now been delivered that can hold a total of 176 corpses. Another four trailers have already been requested. “In the next two to three weeks it could be up to 20 per day. The number of deaths could continue to rise,” said District Judge Ricardo Samaniego the local broadcaster KFOX.
The Texas governor also dispatched nearly 1,400 healthcare workers to the area, and the US Department of Defense has dispatched medical personnel to assist the hospitals. Meanwhile, dozens of patients not being treated for Covid-19 have been airlifted to other hospitals in Texas and New Mexico to make room. “We discharge one patient and there are two more,” says Wanda Helgesen, director of the Council for Emergency and Disaster Preparedness.
Situation in El Paso worse than in New York in the spring
David Stout, the police chief of El Paso County, expressed concern to CNN that the resources that the state of Texas has provided El Paso will soon be needed again nationwide or even nationwide. “When things get worse everywhere else, people have to go back to these other places,” said Stout. “And what will happen then in El Paso?”
Nick Rose, a nurse from El Paso, told KFOX what he was currently experiencing there was “harder” than the time he spent in New York in the spring. Back then, the big city on the east coast was the hotspot of the United States. “I’ve seen more deaths in the past three weeks than I have ever seen in a year,” said Rose.
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Dispute over lockdown: judge disagrees with mayor and governor
In order to get the corona outbreak under control, District Judge Samaniego ordered the non-essential shops to be closed for two weeks at the end of October. Places such as tattoo parlors, hair salons, nail salons, gyms, and massage shops have been closed. Restaurants were only allowed to remain open for delivery orders. Samaniego said the community has never seen “this level of infection”.
Governor Greg Abbott called Judge Samaniego’s order unlawful. El Paso’s mayor Dee Margo also rejected Samaniego’s order, appealing on television to citizens to keep businesses open. Meanwhile, several local companies and the Texas Attorney General joined forces in a lawsuit to block the judge’s order. The state court ruled in favor of Samaniego’s new restrictions last Friday. On Wednesday, Samaniego extended the restrictions until December 1, the local newspaper reported.
Searching for the cause: multi-generation families as “super spreaders”
Although the authorities have no specific cause for the rising numbers, El Paso’s mayor Dee Margo said at the end of October that the infections show that the population has become less vigilant.
Most infections are due to transmission through private gatherings, according to health officials, particularly in multigenerational families who often live together or meet frequently. This is also evident in the hospitals. Several family members were admitted one after the other more frequently.
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