Situation desperate, echoes of the victims cry
If I had a rocket launcher, some son of a bitch would die
– “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” by Bruce Cockburn
“The situation is desperate,” said Dr. Jose Vasquez, the health officer for Starr County, Texas on the US-Mexico border. At the only hospital in the county, over 50% of patients are testing positive for the COVID-19 virus — 40 new coronavirus cases were reported Thursday. Starr County Memorial Hospital in Rio Grande City made plans to set up a committee to decide which patients to send home to die. The hospital will ration its resources to patients with the best chances of surviving (CNN):
The hospital quickly filled the eight beds in its Covid-19 unit, so it expanded to 17 and then 29 beds, Vasquez said. About 33 medical workers, including medical practitioners and lab technicians, were deployed by the state to assist the hospital.
“Unfortunately, Starr County Memorial Hospital has limited resources and our doctors are going to have to decide who receives treatment, and who is sent home to die by their loved ones,” Starr County Judge Eloy Vera wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday. “This is what we did not want our community to experience.”
That was before Hurricane Hanna hit the Texas coast Saturday as a Category 1 storm with maximum winds of 90 miles per hour.
The pandemic had Texas hospitals hitting capacity 10 days ago. In Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley.
Social gatherings are to blame, Starr officials said. “We are seeing the results of socialization during the 4th of July, vacations, and other social opportunities,” Judge Elroy Vera wrote July 23 on the county’s Facebook page. The county issued a shelter-in-place order and a mandatory curfew a day later.
The Guardian adds:
“I have been a nurse for almost 30 years and I had never seen a time like this in our community,” said Corando Rios, a nurse at Starr County Memorial Hospital’s Covid-19 unit. He tested positive for coronavirus a few days ago and is recovering at home in quarantine.
“We are not ICU [intensive care unit] capable, but we are doing ICU work. We now have a state emergency response team of nurses, medics, respiratory therapists, and nurse assistants, and last week two doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists came from the US Navy,” added Rios. “We are doing the best we can with the resources available.”
Alternate facts meet alternate state
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued his quarantine order after nearly half of other states. He refused in April to allow Texas cities to enforce penalties for citizens not wearing masks. He let his quarantine order lapse on May 1 (the second state after Georgia). He downplayed rising hospitalizations in mid-June, reassuring Texans that the state had “abundant hospital capacity.”
Now, with a hurricane emergency on top of the medical one requiring “death panels” in one county, Abbott has issued disaster declarations in 32 counties in Hanna’s path and has set up an Alternate State Operations Center in North Austin, the Statesman reports:
“As people are doing everything possible to protect their lives and loved ones from the storm … I strongly urge you to remember to do everything you can to protect your lives and loved ones from the transmission of COVID-19,” Abbott said during the Saturday news conference. “Do not, in haste, take action that could cause you, a family member or loved one to lose their life in the coming weeks to COVID-19 by disregarding all of these practices that we’ve become accustomed to … such as wearing a face mask.”
One in every 50 people in the region is already infected. A baby boy under 6 months old tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday in Nueces County. He died shortly after.
Republicans screamed that passage of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) would bring “death panels” to America. President Obama’s “socialist” health care would be a “government takeover” of U.S. medicine leading to rationed care. They have worked for years to kill the system that, whatever its flaws, is keeping many Americans alive. They are in court trying to kill it even now.
“Obamacare. We’re going to repel it, we’re going to replace it, get something great. Repeal it, replace it, get something great!” Donald Trump the candidate promised. It would be quick. It would be easy. It would be any day now, he declared within weeks of taking office.
Republicans warned there would be “death panels.” And rationed care. On those promises, they delivered.
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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.