A young Texas Latina county leader is fending off political backlash for her tough COVID-19 measures. 'People are trying to knock me off my game…I can't let them do that for the sake of the community.” - NBCLatino
Harris County leads the state with more than 9,800 coronavirus cases and 207 deaths as of Thursday. But the numbers are smaller proportionally than in any other places because its population is about 4.
7 million people — about the same as North Carolina's., from a rosy January forecast of over 47,000 new jobs in Houston to a projected loss of over 83,000 by the end of the year. County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, a Democrat, said Hidalgo has prioritized science, data and public health expertise over politics. "She didn't look at the polling of who was protesting," Ellis said."Her North Star was data driven. She moved deftly and with a sense of urgency — all along, she stepped up early." That included spending an estimated $17 million to build a medical shelter for 250 patients in case hospitals became overwhelmed. By April 24, when the overflow hadn't happened, the shelter was shut down. The county will seek federal reimbursement for 75 percent of its costs. "What we did is prevent the health care system from being overwhelmed with the types of thousands of deaths we were seeing in other places, which would have been harder on the economy and harder to recover from," Hidalgo said.The state, already majority minority, is experiencing rapid demographic change: Latinos are expected to be the"That demographic change is Latino, young, more politically active, so Judge Hidalgo represents that demographic change of the state," said Jeronimo Cortina, an associate professor of political science and associate director of the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston.Orlando Sanchez, founder of the Texas Latino Conservatives political action committee, acknowledged that Republican control has slipped in urban areas. But he said Hidalgo is failing to recognize the politics of Harris County. He has called Hidalgo's mask order"A lot of conservatives do not believe there is constitutional carte blanche to restrict our liberties," Sanchez said. Harris County is accustomed to much more limited government, he said, while cities like Dallas and San Antonio are used to Democratic leadership. "We are completely different from the boroughs of New York. We are Texans. We are independent. We act on our own," said Sanchez, whose PAC recruits and supports conservative Latino candidates.Hidalgo said her coronavirus strategy began with monitoring what was happening in other countries, watching South Korea contain the virus through tracing and testing. Plan A was to do the same, but there weren't enough swabs and reagents for full testing. The county went to Plan B,"which was the blunter tool of social distancing and shutting things down," she said. That included the mask mandate and fines. "I didn't want to shut down the economy. I would have liked to have a containment approach," she said."There just wasn't testing available."Speaking about the criticism that Hidalgo has received, Ellis said keeping a large metro area safe during an emerging global pandemic would have tested officials at any experience level. "A lot of people want to tackle a 29-year-old Latina who has done one hell of a job. The test doesn't get any bigger than this. This test is bigger than Harvey. It's bigger than what [former New York Mayor Rudy] Giuliani had to do after 9/11," Ellis said. "There's no playbook, and the enemy — you can't feel it, you can't see it, you can't touch it," Ellis said. Hidalgo isn't ready to declare success, aware that as the state reopens, more cases could occur. She said she feels Abbott is moving too quickly, but the county is adjusting by deploying 300 coronavirus tracers to track down people who have the virus and whom they had contact with. It will urge those people to self-isolate so they can"choke off the virus." She hopes to stay ahead of it. "The best I can do now is to stay centered and focused on getting my community through this crisis from a health standpoint and an economic standpoint," she said."People are trying to knock me off my game. That's what they want. I can't let them do that for the sake of the community. My job is to keep them safe."
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