LACK OF PERSONNEL, SOLID DATA, EQUALS DISMAL RESPONSE

By Juan Montoya

When a violent criminal overpowered a guard, stole his gun, and ended up killing and innocent civilian for his car, Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio said the commissioners court had not funded his personnel requests and that had resulted in the guard breaking the rules that two guards accompany dangerous inmates to medical appointments.

In other words, he was short of staff and it was the commissioners court fault.

Well, that didn't help the dead man, and now we see that another Cameron County department is now blaming the small workforce at the Cameron County Health Dept. as being partly responsible for their dismal performance addressing the COVID-19 infection and mortality rates and providing an accurate picture for county residents.

So that means that as long as the same staff is at that department, the true picture of the crisis will always be weeks, if not months, behind.

"Be prepared to see large increases in the death count in the next few weeks as the backlog of deaths are added to te total. Please be patient..," wrote family medicine physician Beverly     Zavaleta.

It's true that our medical facilities and personnel has been overwhelmed by the COVID-19 onslaught in our region, but if we are indeed in a war, it's time to invest in our defense and bring in reinforcements. Spend a few dollars – or $1 million, what does it matter when lives are at stake? – to bring in personnel to bolster the department's staff, invigorate the documentation efforts and strengthen the contact outreach efforts to identify the source and origin of infections.

We do this on n emergency basis for roads and bridges. Why can't we do this in a matter of life and death of our county residents? A bridge we can go around, as we can detour a road, but once a human life is gone, what can you do?

Unfortunately, this is about par for the course in the official response to the virus from the national to the state to the local level.

Seeing how the ICU units at Rio Grande Valley hospitals were filled to overflowing and there was no more room at emergency rooms and local funeral homes, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott turned down an offer from Samaritan's Purse to set iup a field hospital to come to Hidalgo County to help with the overflow.

Landlubber Greg Abbott turned down an offer for Samaritan's Purse to bring a field hospital to McAllen and towns downriver in the Rio Grande Valley to the Gulf Coast, and opted instead to send four U.S. Navy Rural Rapid Response Teams to (McAllen, Brownsville, etc.?) the desert in Del Rio, Eagle Pass, and Rio Grande City.

Can sailors tread in sand and in cactus?

The three cities have a combined population of perhaps 75,000 while Brownsville's population alone numbers more than 200,000 plus the estimated 800,000(+) in neighboring sister city in Tamaulipas, Matamoros, the second most infected city in that state, that shares our border.

Is this a function – like the U.S. Census – of artificially deflated numbers in the COVID-19 positive cases and deaths reported by the Cameron County Health Dept. that made state authorities send the assets elsewhere? After all, despite the full pages of obituaries (23 Saturday in the Brownsville Herald) the county reported no deaths on Wednesday and 10 on Thursday.

“In our discussions with the Texas governor’s office, they informed us that they are supplementing local hospitals with doctors and nurses. They feel that this is sufficient now to meet the community’s needs,” the organization said in the email. “Because of this, Samaritan’s Purse will not be deploying an Emergency Field Hospital to McAllen, Texas, at this time. However, if the need changes and we are asked by the governor’s office to come, we are ready and will immediately respond.”

Representatives of Samaritan’s Purse had previously said the heat and threat of hurricanes in the Valley were among the reasons for opting out of bringing a field hospital to the area.

John Wittman, spokesman for Abbott’s office, cited the same challenges Monday, saying the governor’s office instead believes using hotels to house patients is “the best course of action.”

“It’s just a better option for the folks down there,” Wittman said. “We’ve coordinated with the locals. This is the best way to provide care and in fact does provide greater (bed) capacity.”

Or perhaps Abbott got the idea that the infection isn't being taken for serious by the residents downriver from Rio Grande City.

Is it possible that he might have known that our avid South Texas beachgoers willfully ignored the orders of Cameron County Eddie Treviño of closing the county's beaches and access roads north of the SPI city limits?

The photo at right is of cars parking between the gates at the county's beach accesses 5 and 6 and simply walking over the dunes to the unguarded beaches.

Wanna bet no one was cited for trespassing, not wearing face masks, or keeping a social distance?