As COVID Deaths Soar, El Paso at Breaking Point with Hospitals & Mobile Morgues Filling Up

Some Republican governors are dropping their resistance to mask mandates, as public health officials in the United States brace for a COVID-19 surge from the Thanksgiving holiday amid already record-high infection rates. However, Republican resistance to other public health safety measures continues as coronavirus cases in Texas reach record highs for a second time during the pandemic. El Paso County, an area along the U.S.-Mexico border where 80% of residents are Latinx, is also facing one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S. and now has 10 mobile morgues to hold bodies. Some prisoners are being paid just $2 an hour to move the bodies as the number of cases and deaths has completely overwhelmed local hospitals. We're at capacity," says Dr. Emilio Gonzalez-Ayala, a leading pulmonary disease and critical care specialist in El Paso. We're beyond the limit where we can continue to admit to the hospital patients that come in critically ill."