Skyrocketing Death Toll in Hispanic Areas
Shines Light on GOP Policies at the Capitol

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor
August 7, 2020

TEXAS COVID Cases Per 100,000 Deaths in Past Week Harris 1,702 253 Bexar 2,094 160 Hidalgo 2,199 149 Cameron 3,749 101 Dallas 2,022 72 Nueces 3,741 61 Tarrant 1,550 59 Val Verde 3,398 35 Webb 2,681 27 El Paso 1,896 26 Brazoria 1,894 23 Travis 1,762 22 Fort Bend 1,127 17 Starr 3,721 14 Denton 847 14 Johnson 1,029 9 Maverick 3,953 8 Montgomery 1,083 8 Jim Wells 1,742 8 Williamson 1,069 7 Parker 841 6 Ector 2,166 5 Collin 702 5 Kaufman 1,610 4 Rockwall 834 0 Midland 1,453 0

The body count has been soaring on the Rio Grande where the coronavirus is exposing the vast racial and economic inequities that Governor Greg Abbott and the Republicans have fueled in the Lone Star State with their steadfast opposition to an expansion of Medicaid.

The Texas border with Mexico has been terrorized with 360 fatalities attributed to COVID-19 in the past week alone in the seven largest counties on the north side of the river.

The virus has killed 250 people in the past seven days in Hidalgo and Cameron counties in the Rio Grande Valley while claiming 35 more lives in Val Verde County, 27 in Webb County and 26 in El Paso in the same span of time.

Sixty-one people have died in the past week in Nueces County - a southeast Texas coastal location with a population that's two-thirds Hispanic. With the state's second largest city of San Antonio as the hub, Bexar County has added 160 virus victims to the fatality tally there in the past week.

More than 500 people have died in the past week alone in counties with populations with Latino majorities along the border and the Gulf Coast from South Padre Island to the Corpus Christi area and other parts of south and west Texas from Alice to the Alamo City to the Permian Basin.

Meanwhile to the north, the seven suburban counties that ring the Dallas-Fort Worth area only have added 43 deaths to the collective toll in the past week combined. DFW has had about half as many people die when Dallas and Tarrant counties are figured into the mix as the seven counties that are perched across the river from Mexico.

The impact that GOP policies in Austin have been having during the first five months of the contagion has been on display in major Texas population centers with sister cities as their anchors. Hidalgo and Cameron counties at the southern tip of the state with McAllen, Edinburg and Brownsville as the largest cities have recorded 765 and 405 deaths respectively since the initial outbreak.

With a population that was 63 percent Hispanic during the last census estimate last summer, Ector County has had 44 people die from COVID-19 infections compared to 33 in Midland where 46 percent of the residents are Latino. The virus has stolen five lives in Ector in the past week and none in Midland.

Potter County with a population that's 39 percent Hispanic has buried 44 virus victims this year. Twenty-three people have lost their lives to COVID-19 in neighboring Randall County where 23 percent of the residents are Latino. The original epicenter in Texas, the Amarillo area straddles Potter and Randall counties in the Panhandle. .

While Hidalgo and Cameron are the 7th and 13th largest counties in Texas, Collin and Denton have larger combined populations as the counties that are ranked 6th and 9th respectively. Less than 20 percent of the people in Collin and Denton are Hispanic compared to more than 90 percent in Hidalgo and Cameron. The coronavirus death toll stood at 1,170 on Friday in Cameron and Hidalgo counties combined compared to a collective total of 169 in Denton and Collin respectively. The coronavirus has killed more than 13 times as many people in Hidalgo and Cameron counties in the past seven days than it has in Collin and Denton.

Cameron and Nueces counties both have recorded more coronavirus infections per capita than the Bronx - the section of New York City that has been hit the hardest during the pandemic.

With the virus taking 1,410 lives in Texas in the past seven days, Texas has recorded a higher number of fatalities in the past seven days than any other state with Florida as a distant second with 1,161 fatalities. Texas and Florida have both reported more cases in the past week than California with 56,000 and 49,000 respectively.

As the two largest states that President Donald Trump has to win for a chance at a win in November, Texas and Florida logged 2,571 fatalities combined in the past week compared to 1,094 when California and New York are added together as the two biggest blue states where the president will be crushed this fall.

Trump showed his concern on Thursday when he declared Texas and Florida to be exempt from 25 percent cuts in federal funds for testing like he's planning for the 48 other states.

Abbott and the Republicans who control the Texas House and Senate have refused up to now to take advantage of a massive pool of federal funds in a move that could be construed by primary opponents as an endorsement of Obamacare.

The GOP posturing could be costing Texas $100 billion or more in federal funds over the course of a decade when it could be utilized with state matching money to ensure that as many as 1.5 million people who are uninsured would qualify for Medicaid.

The pandemic has turned a floodlight on the consequences of the Legislature's inaction and partisan gamesmanship with skyrocketing death tolls in parts of the state that are heavily Hispanic and relatively poor. About 30 percent of the adults in Cameron, Hidalgo and Webb counties have no health insurance as the three largest border locations south and east of El Paso. Hispanics account for 40 percent of the Texas population and almost two of every three people who are uninsured around the state.

Collin and Denton counties - in sharp contrast - had 12 percent and 13 percent of their adult populations uninsured in the last few years. Between 14 percent and 17 percent of the adults in the suburban meccas that surround Houston like Fort Bend, Brazoria and Montgomery counties have no health coverage.

But the governor and legislative leaders have been planning to try to cover the costs of the pandemic in Texas with drastic spending cuts that would hit Latinos harder than any other segment of the population based on the policies that GOP leaders and lawmakers here have embraced when short on money in the past.

While the Republicans budget-cutting plans will be moot if Democrats seize control of the House in the general election, the spotlight on the pandemic publicity that South Texas has attracted as the heart of the second surge epicenter could make it difficult for GOP lawmakers to attempt to balance the budget on the backs of people in areas that are predominantly Hispanic.