MCALLEN, Texas – Following on the The New York Times blockbuster story about how a Rio Grande Valley hospital is coping with COVID-19, The Los Angeles Times has also sent a top reporter to the region.
Molly Hennessey-Fiske has penned an article titled: Coronavirus has torn Texas’ tight-knit Rio Grande Valley apart: ‘We’re in hell right now.’
The Valley is also now receiving international attention. Channel 4 News for the United Kingdom is in the region to cover one of the nation’s current major COVID-19 hotspots.
Local elected officials and healthcare leaders are thrilled to see the national press in the Valley because it increases the chances of getting additional state and federal assistance in the battle against the pandemic.
The Los Angeles Times:
Here is the start of Molly Hennessey-Fiske’s story:
EDINBURG, Texas — At 2 days old, David Alejandro Vega weighed just 3 pounds, spindly arms and legs reaching from his neonatal intensive care incubator for a mother he couldn’t touch.
She was quarantined across the hospital in a maternal coronavirus ward.
Like many expectant mothers with COVID-19, Mayra Vega delivered several weeks premature, by caesarean section, on Thursday. She was barred from holding, nursing or even seeing her son, beyond the photographs and videos nurses let her glimpse from a computer screen.
David was born into a pandemic, but Vega, 27, was grateful he tested negative for the virus, which has already killed 398 in the surrounding Rio Grande Valley, about 10% of Texas’ COVID-19 deaths.
Editor’s Note: Click here to read the full story.
Editor’s Note: The main image accompanying the above news story shows Sonia Aguirre, right, and 9-year-old Abdiel Sanchez paying respects to his great-grandfather, Fernando Aguirre, who died of COVID-19 at age 69.(Photo: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)
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