The number of deaths from the Coronavirus surges, and a city in United States invests prisoners and soldiers to move their bodies
Coronavirus pandemic in the United States continues to worsen, with a total of 12 million confirmed cases on the 21st. In El Paso, the capital of El Paso County, Texas, the number of deaths from the Coronavirus pandemic has been increasing, forcing the authorities to use multiple refrigerated trailers as temporary morgues and use prison inmates and the National Guard to help move the bodies.
Texas reported 12,597 new cases in a single day on the 21st, a record high. El Paso County reported more than 1,000 new cases in a single day on the same day, with a total of 80,000 cases. Since the outbreak, the cumulative number of deaths in Texas has exceeded 20,000, and the cumulative number of deaths in El Paso County has exceeded 850, including more than 300 since October.
Texas media reported that the number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in El Paso is nearly 10 times that of early September. In addition to building a new temporary hospital, the local area also converted about 10 refrigerated trailers into temporary morgues to store the corpses of an increasing number of dead patients. As of the 19th, there were nearly 250 bodies in the fixed and temporary morgues.
The “Texas Forum” website quoted a spokesperson for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office as saying that due to a shortage of manpower, the authorities paid for the recruitment of prisoners to “assistance with the handling of too many corpses waiting for autopsy” at a rate of $2 per hour.
Media photos and videos showed that there were a number of white refrigerated trailers parked outside the autopsy’s office, and a number of people wearing striped prison uniforms, masks and protective gloves carried the bodies onto the car.
Reports say that prisoners are usually unpaid for community work, but this time they refused to move the bodies free of charge and 4 to 8 minor offenders were recruited.
A spokesperson for the Texas Emergency Measures Department said on the 20th that after assessing the current status of the pandemic in El Paso County, it was decided to send 36 National Guard soldiers to provide assistance on the “morgue matters” starting on the morning of the 21st. El Paso Mayor Dee Margo wrote on social media that “the death toll has soared” and “thanks a lot” to the “vital” people who came to help. CNN reported that this group of National Guard members will take over the prisoners to carry the bodies.
Data show that the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the United States exceeded 10 million on November 9, 11 million on November 15, and 12 million on the 21st, an average of 1 million new cases every 6 days.
Texas is the first state in the United States to exceed 1 million cases of Coronavirus, and currently has the largest cumulative number of cases, exceeding 1.11 million. On the one hand, the number of infections and deaths continues to rise, and on the other, there is a dispute over pandemic prevention and control measures. After Texas announced that it would send the National Guard, El Paso County’s top administrative officer Ricardo Samaniego sent a letter to Governor Greg Abbott, calling on him to support a curfew in El Paso County to contain the pandemic.
After Republican Abbott ordered the reopening of economic activities in early October, Samaniego ordered El Paso to implement strict prevention and control measures at the end of the same month to prohibit non-essential businesses from operating. The local restaurant owner and state attorney general Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Samanigo’s order in an appeals court. Paxton called Samaniego “a tyrant who disregarded Texas law.”
The appellate court ruled in the middle of this month to support the prosecution. Samaniego wrote in the letter that Thanksgiving and other holidays are approaching, if no more measures are taken, the pandemic may worsen.
