DO COVID-19 MATH: 3,000 (+)TO DIE IN CAMERON COUNTY

Using their own numbers, then, this means that we are looking at a potential 3,156 deaths ( 5 percent of 62,310) as of today.

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño and Chief Medical Officer Dr. James Castillo laid out the bare numbers yesterday during a press conference on the COVID-19 cases in the county.

The short answer was that there were "hundreds" of deaths that have not been reported in their numbers and that the reported totals reflect the deaths in June and early July. What the actual rate is, they could only estimate.

But they stopped short of doing the math. Let's do it ourselves.

Castillo said that according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) , the cases reported usually were only one-tenth of the actual number of people infected with then virus. This morning, the county's report indicates that there have been a total of 6,213 positive cases so far.

That mean that – using the CDC estimate – we can multiply this by 10, which gives us 62,130 potential positives in the county.

Castillo stated that of those, there will be a five (5) percent mortality rate, that is, that five percent of the 62,130 positive cases will result in death.

Using their own numbers, then, this means that we are looking at a potential 3,156 deaths ( 5 percent of 62,310) as of today. What happens from now on as the virus pandemic peaks here is anyone's guess.

If what they say is true, then this is the biggest disaster we have experienced in Cameron County in our life time – more than any hurricane, border conflict, cartel violence, etc.– made even worse by the lackadaisical response by our public officials and their dread of the wrath of Tex. Gov. Greg Abbott whose focus is to keep commerce rolling over our dead bodies. Pray, that this time, they are wrong.

Castillo said that the number of deaths reported to the public so far has been delayed (he calls it a lag) because of a shortage of personnel at the Cameron Health Department, the fact that some of those employees have been sick with the virus and the department was short-handed, and that they have asked the state for another 20 employees to give the staff a hand.

This realization comes a bit late for those victims of the CODIV-19 virus in our county and sheds an unflattering light on the efforts of the county and its municipalities in protecting their residents.

If the residents believe that only 111 have died so far, they will think the disease is something that will kill only the old and sickly and go about their merry way. The bell curve indicates that most of the new victims range in age from their 20s to 40s.

Castillo and Treviño stopped short of saying what their numbers predict. Instead, they urged their listeners to "modify" their behavior and take the usual precautions like social distancing, face coverings, hand washing, etc.

Let's see if they will lead by example and modify theirs to reflect a higher urgency in saving their constituents' lives.

(The Cameron County jails, for example, have reported 500 positive COVID-18 cases in a population of some 1,000. There, the prisoners remain isolated from adequate medical personnel, their families, their lawyers, or even communication with the courts. Doing two months for a misdemeanor should not be a death sentence, no matter what the hard-ass critics say. It might as well be a "lepers' colony," as one attorney called it.)

Upriver in Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez has been giving starkly different numbers than Treviño and has recognized that the highly contagious disease has alighted and is afflicting his county's people.

He has defied the Trump pussy-whipped, politically pusillanimous Abbott and issued a Shelter-in-Place order that includes curfews, travel restrictions and sanctions for those who do not comply, measures which a governor's spokesman quickly said could only be "recommendations" and that the governor would not authorize the sanctions in place if it closed any businesses.

Who will blink? Will Abbott move in court to prevent Cortez from taking measures to protect the lives of the people in his county? Or will he step aside and let the county judges on the ground to address their particular situations?

We got our nickle on Cortez.