Tuesday, June 22, 2021

GABBY AND EDDIE GARCIA MAKE FRONT PAGE OF THE TIMES

said. Credit...Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times

By Edgar Sandoval
BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Gabby Garcia did not expect to feel like crying when she sat down for her first dose of the coronavirus vaccine. But as the long needle pierced her skin, she thought back to the agonizing outbreak in her family that killed her sister, hospitalized her brother and also left her ill for days.

“It was a sense of relief, ‘I’m getting it’,” Ms. Garcia said of the vaccine. “It was the sense of what if? What if this had been available sooner? My sister’s death and us getting sick definitely motivated me to get the vaccine.”

(Gabby and Eddie Garcia held a photo collage of their sister, Margarita Gonzalez, who died last year. Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times.)

While officials across the country have offered free beer, concert tickets and millions of dollars in lottery winnings to encourage vaccinations, residents of the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas have needed little prodding. Exposure to death and disease has been enough incentive. 

The four-county region accounts for nearly 10 percent of the state’s some 52,000 deaths from the coronavirus. But today, deaths are significantly down, as are case numbers, and vaccination rates are higher than both the broader state and national averages. In one county, about 70 percent of residents 12 and older are fully vaccinated, according to state figures and a vaccine tracker by the New York Times.

“I think pretty much everyone in the region knew someone who died from Covid,” said Dr. Michael R. Dobbs, vice dean of clinical affairs for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, which operates the region’s only medical school. “So people wanted the vaccine.”

People waiting to receive a coronavirus vaccine at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville, Texas, this month.Credit...Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times

At its height last summer, the coronavirus tore through the region. Hospitals were overloaded with patients, many of whom waited hours to be seen. Funeral homes were so busy that many needed large refrigerators to store bodies for several weeks. On its worst day, Hidalgo County, the most populous county in the Valley, reported the deaths of more than 60 people, reaching a coronavirus death rate of 5 percent, more than double the 2 percent national average.

So when vaccines became available, people scrambled to line up. They flocked to area schools, fire stations and even flea markets, or pulgas, where local residents gather in large numbers. They slept in parking lots, jammed phone lines and showed up without appointments pleading for a leftover dose, health officials said.

“Older people really feared death,” said Dr. Emilie Prot, a regional medical director with the state department of health. “A lot of times we needed to turn people away.”

9 comments:

Anonymous said...


Is the impotent still sleeping in his dead mother's bed in McAllen?

Anonymous said...

The NYT was all about brownsville tx today they also ran a story about the now famous snowfake hillbilly coco wanna be white: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott vetoes bipartisan anti-cruelty bill for dogs, earning AbbottHatesDogs hashtag & SHCWBW hashtag.

The local dumpster diver was a headliner on the NYT but on the very last story and on the last page next to the number page (page 66) on the bottom.

Anonymous said...

Y el Priest de Erasmo was making fun of Eddie daily when he had Covid. Erasmo nvv!

Anonymous said...

If only they could invent a vaccine for Eddie to grow a pair and not retire once he was told he was going back to patrol. He was used to all the easy assignments and working for chicken feed at Movies 10. What a waste!

Anonymous said...

They made it for taking the vaccine! Not for any great accomplishment.

Let's be real.

Anonymous said...

Good for them…. Lead by example…. they clearly don’t want others to suffer the pain they have felt.

Anonymous said...

Quien es la ruca de red? Tiene fb?

Anonymous said...

@10:01 That's the sister that passed away you sick fuk! Show more respect for the dead puto!

Anonymous said...

June 24, 2021 at 10:01 AM

es un pendejetes baboso he's got more shit than respect

rita