Column One: Coronavirus has torn this tight-knit Texas valley apart: 'We're in hell right now'
. The virus has cut through generations of families. It has taken pastors and farmworkers. Deaths here are multiplying, crematoriums are backed up for weeks, and at one cemetery, so many graves were dug that the backhoe broke down and men had to take to shovels.
Melendez ordered the start of county schools be postponed until September, even as Abbott has threatened to withhold state funding unless they open for in-person instruction next month. But such celebrations have led to the loss of grandparents, parents and children as young as 15: “This virus is terrible for people with a culture like ours,” he said. “It’s just a tragedy to watch this unfold.”
Catrina Rugar, 34, a Florida-based nurse who deployed first to the outbreak in New York City, then to the Edinburg hospital, said she had seen the claims and that nurses had faced shortages of supplies and support.“It’s the norm in a crisis situation,” Rugar said, noting that some temporary nurses left the hospital in protest this month before completing their contracts. “The first few days we were here, it was horrible. People were just dying.
Juan Treviño, 38, a part-time pastor for Congregación Sendas Antiguas, said Garcia visited him when he was hospitalized with COVID-19 last month after his family vacationed with friends on South Padre Island. Treviño‘s mother became infected while working at a nearby migrant-holding area for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which lost a veteran agent in the valley to COVID-19 earlier this month. Now her husband is sick, too.
Flower girl Drea Cedillo, 5, wore a mask to a family wedding Saturday at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Mission, Texas. She walks past pews blocked off for social distance.
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