THE COUNTY'S LUDICROUS DEATH COUNT FROM COVID-19

By Juan Montoya

On Thursday, a local justice of the peace got a call to conduct and inquest into a death from COVID-19...at the Gateway Bridge.

A man in his 40s, able to cross into the United States with his visa, had come down with the COVID-19 virus in Matamoros, and after he got worse and the hospitals in Matamoros said they were at capacity and could do nothing for him, his family decided to take him to the emergency room at one of the Brownsville hospitals.

He didn't make it and the judge had to go to the scene on the line at the Bridge. The man had been able to cross the international line and when the family tried to take him back to Matamoros, Mexican authorities said they could not bring him back because of the virus infection. They either had to bury him on the U.S. side of have him cremated if they could find a funeral home to do it.

The reason the man's death is noteworthy is not because of where or how he died. It highlights the fact that in the daily report on COVID-19 deaths and positive cases, Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño made no mention of his passing from the virus. Neither did he make mention that the obituaries in the local daily now fill more than a page every day, and have done so every day for the months since the outbreak.

If someone has a heart condition, or other illnesses such as diabetes, kidney or liver, or lung problems aggravated by the virus that results in death, some of these will not be tallied as virus-related deaths. Funeral directors and crematoriums say they are overwhelmed with the dead from COVID-19 and have to turn away people. Look at the obituaries listed at the different funeral homes.There is a glut of dead people from the virus.

Hospitals cannot handle the volume and there is a waiting list for ICU beds. And little Judge Eddie this week said there were no deaths on Wednesday, 10 (all over 60) on Thursday from Valley Baptist Hospital, and two today. There is no mention of the man on Gateway Bridge, even though it is documented and happened on the county-owned bridge.

Right now relatives cannot take their family members who are dying in hospitals from the disease so they can die at home. In one case, a local resident (and Brownsville police officer) has two family members and a brother-in-law suffering from the disease. His elderly mother who stayed at home got it from his sister and both are now at the hospital. There is no hope for his mom and he wants to take her home, but can't. Then he found out his brother-in-law also got it.

Multiply this story by 100 or 200 and that's the real picture of the effect of COVID-19 here in our city. To deny this is to bury your head in the sand and hope everyone is as self deceived as you are. Even the reports to the state are bound to be skewered.

The latest report shown only 89 dead. Could this be considered tampering with a government document? In other words, deliberately lying to the state and national governments?

Texas just acknowledged that there were 5,000 positive cases that had not been reported. And the Trump administration was caught and generally reprehended by both Democrats and Republicans for trying to have the hospitals report on deaths and positive cases to it, rather than to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Why?

Are Trump, Abbott, and Cameron County's own Little Trump afraid to acknowledge that they have lost control of the situation and let people know what they already know and should know: that the virus has exploded and that everyone is in danger unless strict measures are undertaken by them personally and by every level of government to bring it under control.