HOUSTON, Nov 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Texas Army National Guard is sending a 36-person team, to assist with mortuary services starting yesterday, in the border county of El Paso, that was hit hard lately by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is very much needed in our community,” the Democratic state Rep. and Sen.-elect, Cesar Blanco, said.
El Paso, a U.S. border county adjacent to Mexico, has been devastated by the virus for more than a month. Official figures showed, El Paso reported over 16,000 new cases in the last two weeks, thousands more than the numbers reported for the much larger counties.
Also, nearly 950 residents have died since the pandemic began, placing the county far ahead of the state’s other major urban counties in deaths per 1,000 residents.
After county volunteers backed away from moving bodies, who died of COVID-19, El Paso officials paid inmates, who are serving low-level sentences, two U.S. dollars an hour, to do the job.
