Four of the five metro areas with the worst death rates in the country over the last two weeks were also in the South Texas border region — Rio Grande City, Brownsville-Harlingen, McAllen and Eagle Pass. In Rio Grande City in rural Starr County, which has only one overwhelmed hospital, the death rate was the highest, at 0.68 per 1,000 people. “When the state opened, that’s when we saw the infection rate increase dramatically.”Mr. Vela and other congressional Democrats in Texas have criticized Gov. Greg Abbott’s handling of the state’s reopening. When Mr. Abbott, a Republican, reopened the state in phases beginning May 1, he lifted the state’s stay-at-home order and prohibited local officials from adopting their own.

Source: New York Times August 14, 2020 00:11 UTC