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BajaNomad
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Americans from Mexico with COVID-19 Overwhelm Hospitals in Imperial County
The only two hospitals in Imperial County were forced to close their doors to new coronavirus patients on Tuesday, after admitting scores believed
stricken with the virus from Mexico’s nearby border town of Mexicali.
The patients were U.S. citizens believed to live in Mexicali, capital of the Mexican state of Baja California, and had been turned away from hospitals
overrun with coronavirus cases there, said Dr. Adolphe Edward, chief executive officer of the El Centro Regional Medical Center.
Edward said his 161-bed hospital in El Centro, the main city in Imperial County about 100 miles east of San Diego, took in 65 COVID-19 patients on
Monday night, while the 106-bed Pioneers Memorial Hospital in nearby Brawley admitted 28.
“Our numbers just skyrocketed last night,” Edward said on his hospital’s Facebook page.
https://timesofsandiego.com/life/2020/05/19/americans-from-m...
[Edited on 5-20-2020 by BajaNomad]
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
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We know we must go back if we live, and we don`t know why.
– John Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
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BajaNomad
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https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/may/19/citing-overnight-rises...
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
– Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
We know we must go back if we live, and we don`t know why.
– John Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
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BajaNomad
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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-19/imperial...
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
– Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
We know we must go back if we live, and we don`t know why.
– John Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
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BajaNaranja
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Ouch... but thanks for sharing this info.
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Alm
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They are sending patients from El Centro to San Diego and other SoCal locations: https://kmph.com/news/local/virus-cases-spike-in-california-...
Every time after holiday gatherings there is a spike 10-15 days later. Now there is a spike after Mother's Day, and before that there was a spike 2
weeks after Easter. In the border areas like this, cases from one side of the border are leaking to the other side, and neither side is doing
anything to screen the incoming traffic.
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BajaNaranja
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/05/27/coronavirus-...
Coronavirus on the border
MAY 27, 2020
Excerpts:
"...approximately half of the coronavirus patients in several California border hospitals, including El Centro Regional Medical Center, are recent
arrivals from Mexico. As a result of that surge, Imperial County, home to El Centro, has a much higher concentration of coronavirus cases — 760 per
100,000 residents — than any other county in California"
"Forty-eight percent of patients at Scripps Mercy in Chula Vista last week had visited Mexico in the week before they were admitted."
“We don’t think the border should be closed, but we do think health checks and contact tracing would make a difference,” said Chris Van Gorder,
the chief executive of Scripps Health, which runs the hospital. “What we don’t want is people going back and forth across the border and infecting
other people.”
"Some health experts say the epidemiological curves in border cities on both sides will eventually overlap. “There are so many people crossing back
and forth that it becomes one homogeneous rate,” said Arturo Rodriguez, the public health director of Brownsville, Tex. “In other words, you have
three rates: the U.S., Mexico and your border rate.”
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SFandH
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It's too bad they didn't say "are Americans recently crossing the border from Mexico" instead of "are recent arrivals from Mexico"
I'm concerned that many readers will assume "recent arrivals from Mexico" means Mexicans are crowding US hospitals and start screaming to close the
border.
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David K
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Thanks to the new wall, you may be comforted to know any Mexican citizens are legally here and considered essential crossers. Of course, only
'essential American citizens' or residents of Mexico should be south of the border, for now. I am seeing Facebook trip photos of Americans getting
through who just want to play in Baja! Maybe that's essential to them...? Heck, it is kind of to me, too! 
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Alm
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Quote: Originally posted by SFandH  | Excerpts:
"...approximately half of the coronavirus patients in several California border hospitals, including El Centro Regional Medical Center, are recent
arrivals from Mexico......."
[/rquote]
It's too bad they didn't say "are Americans recently crossing the border from Mexico" instead of "are recent arrivals from Mexico"
I'm concerned that many readers will assume "recent arrivals from Mexico" means Mexicans are crowding US hospitals and start screaming to close the
border. |
Could be both gringos and Mexicans.
There are Mexicans traveling to work in the US every day.
And there are gringo PR and Mexican green card holders with residences and/or relatives on both sides of the border. A "permanent resident" that
doesn't spend most of his time in the alleged country or permanent residence is basically an oxymor.on. Here in Canada immigrants lose PR if they are
not here at least 3 years out of 5, renewal of PR card is not automatic, you must submit passport with entry/exit stamps, to calculate the time in and
out.
With these "essential" travelers it will take a long time for epidemic to subside.
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BajaNaranja
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From the WaPo article:
When [Adolphe Edward, chief executive of El Centro Regional Medical Center] posted a video update on Facebook last week explaining that his
overwhelmed hospital would temporarily stop accepting more covid-19 patients, he received a stream of messages criticizing him for prioritizing
patients from across the border.
“Send them back to Mexico,” one person wrote.
“The border should have been closed from day one,” wrote another.
Edward, a former Air Force physician who helped lead the U.S. military’s medical team in Baghdad, tried to explain that these were Americans
he was treating.
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TMW
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Personally I don't care if El Centro is helping to treat Mexicans. If we don't work together it will come back to bite us. By the way it is not
illegal to medically treat an illegal, the US Supreme Court has already ruled on that.
[Edited on 5-28-2020 by TMW]
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BajaNomad
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Saturated hospitals, airlifts as California border region virus cases surge
'Coronavirus cases are surging... Mexicali, capital of the Mexican state of Baja California, has the third-highest number of confirmed COVID cases in
Mexico, with its main hospitals at four-fifths capacity, state health department data shows. Only a few miles beyond the border fence, Imperial
County, California, is coping with the most COVID hospitalizations per capita in the state - well over twice the rate of the next highest county. For
the past two weeks, Imperial County’s largest hospital has used helicopters to fly some patients to other clinics, including those over 100 miles
(160 km) away in San Diego and Palm Springs, because its intensive care unit is full... Part of the wave of patients are U.S. citizens who live in
Mexico and cross to seek care, Cruz said. At least 57 patients have arrived in ambulances that picked them up at the Calexico port of entry in the
last two weeks, some unconscious by the time they reached El Centro...'
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-mexico...
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
– Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
We know we must go back if we live, and we don`t know why.
– John Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
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BajaNomad
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‘This is a war’: A look at Mexicali’s efforts to respond to COVID-19 calls
--
The ambulance idled outside the Mexicali General Hospital for nearly an hour before the paramedics left the man on a gurney inside. He was in critical
condition, and temperatures soared past 100 degrees.
Doctors informed ambulance team leader Angel Valladolid Pimentel on Wednesday morning that both public hospitals in Mexicali had run out of beds for
COVID-19 patients. The 20-year veteran leads a group of 15 firefighters working 24-hour shifts to respond to all coronavirus-related calls in the
industrial city of just over 1 million people — with one ambulance and a small car.
On a later service call, Valladolid Pimentel recommended a family buy an oxygen tank for a woman who was having problems breathing, because she
wasn’t critically ill and there were no hospital beds. There’s a 24-hour shop in Mexicali that is renting out medical equipment. He showed them
how to use it to monitor her at home.
“This is a war, a total war,” Valladolid Pimentel said in Spanish. “All we can do is try, nothing more.”
Coronavirus cases and deaths are surging in Mexico, as decades of deterioration in the country’s health care system have left it vulnerable and
ill-equipped to handle the pandemic. The air-conditioning broke for a few hours at Mexicali General Hospital on Thursday, resulting in protests by
staff outside the building.
The country is reporting more than 81,000 cases and over 9,000 deaths as of Friday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.
At the U.S.-Mexico border, Mexicali is at the heart of the outbreak in the northern state of Baja California. Local hospitals are reaching capacity as
Mexicali now reports the third-most coronavirus cases among all cities in the country — there were 2,226 confirmed cases with 205 virus-related
fatalities in Mexicali as of Friday, according to Baja California public health officials.
Meanwhile, about a two-hour’s drive north in Riverside County, health officials told the state they have “sufficient” hospital capacity in their
approved request to rapidly reopen. About 60% of the Southern California’s county’s hospital beds and 80% of intensive care beds are in use,
spokeswoman Brooke Frederico said.
Traffic seldom moved to the side as Valladolid Pimentel drove through the wide streets of Mexicali, even with a full siren and lights on. People stood
in line to buy tacos to-go while others waited outside of convenience stores. He often got stuck behind traffic at stoplights.
The Mexicali mayor declared an emergency on May 22, ordering all businesses to close by 7 p.m.; it remains in effect. Baja California health officials
report only 79% of hospital beds at Mexicali General Hospital and 78% at the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, or IMSS Hospital, are in use —
but on the ground, the paramedics are grappling with a different reality. Doctors are now asking Valladolid Pimentel to give priority to critically
ill youth, he said.
His units, organized by the Mexicali Fire Department, initially began with eight firefighters each, but some staff requested vacations, resulting in
smaller teams, Valladolid Pimentel said.
Wait times for the units to arrive at homes over the last week ranged from 30 minutes to four hours, depending on how long it took to filter out
non-coronavirus emergency calls and how quickly the response team’s ambulance was available. The ambulance remained on the ramp of Mexicali’s
General Hospital for 2½ hours last Friday morning, waiting for a coroner to pick up the body of a patient who died in transport.
Two teams working overlapping shifts starting at midnight on May 21 responded to 28 calls over the course of 24 hours — eight patients were dead on
arrival and one died en route to the hospital, according to log records kept by the teams.
The family of 75-year-old Lucila Barron, who died Sunday at the hospital after being transported from her home, suspects there were no available
respirators, her daughter Norma Alicia Soto said. When she talked to her mother on the phone, she heard her gasp for air.
Firefighters rest when they can.
Firefighter Illych Sanchez Melgoza, a heavy-set former semi-professional baseball player, said in Spanish that he was confronted by a family member of
a patient who died on a recent call. “You killed him,” the man’s son said.
“I did not kill him,” Sanchez recalled responding firmly, having already interviewed other family members. “Tell me where he was 15 days ago.
Tell me which party he went to.”
Sanchez’s face showed concern as he put on a Tyvek suit for another call.
“They blame us, when they are dead,” Sanchez said, “but (they) don’t want to stay at home.”
--
https://www.desertsun.com/in-depth/news/health/2020/05/29/me...
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
– Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
We know we must go back if we live, and we don`t know why.
– John Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
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RFClark
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Imperial County had no new reported cases of the Wuhan Virus yesterday according to Johns Hopkins. Riverside County also reported no new cases from
the same source.
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BajaBlanca
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Sanchez's last comment is chillingly true. How awful to blame the firefighter.
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Alm
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| Quote: Originally posted by TMW | | Personally I don't care if El Centro is helping to treat Mexicans. If we don't work together it will come back to bite us. |
This is exactly what happened. The epidemic came to Mexico from the US due to lax border control (and poor containment policy in the US as well). Now
it's coming back.
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paranewbi
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| Quote: Originally posted by Alm | | Quote: Originally posted by TMW | | Personally I don't care if El Centro is helping to treat Mexicans. If we don't work together it will come back to bite us. |
This is exactly what happened. The epidemic came to Mexico from the US due to lax border control (and poor containment policy in the US as well). Now
it's coming back. |
Actually, there are a large number of Mexican/Tijuana residents as well as US citizens of Mexican descent who work in our local hospitals. I know
because we are friends to several as well as my wife is a nurse at two of San Diego's largest hospitals.
Hard as they try, it is not a perfect system for the workers at hospitals and there could be plenty of opportunity for these workers to take back to
their neighbors what is claimed to have 'come from the US poor containment policy'.
It is well known in the medical community that the overwhelming of Scripps Chula Vista and now Mercy hospital is from workers with access to the US
from Tijuana and those who chose to live there who are citizens here. They have the access so why choose to go to the TJ medical system?
And by the way...where you would think it would come from, the homeless masses in San Diego, have not presented itself. Why?
The two named hospitals will not turn anyone away, citizen or not, insured or not, and they are the main hospitals in San Diego serving the
homeless/street people. Yet those numbers are not there. Think about that.
Now back to your mind meld.
[Edited on 6-1-2020 by paranewbi]
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Alm
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US containment of this epidemic have been poor from the beginning, there is nothing to "claim" here. US residents and Mex temporary workers in the US
were taking infection back to Mexico and other Mex residents (and US semi-expats) are now taking it from Mexico to the US. Minimal screening at the
border, minimal contacts tracking, minimal isolation. Not to say that they are doing it right in Mexico.
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Alm
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| Quote: Originally posted by RFClark | | Imperial County had no new reported cases of the Wuhan Virus yesterday according to Johns Hopkins. Riverside County also reported no new cases from
the same source. |
Real number of yesterday's cases will become known in about a week, it takes time for symptoms to develop and patients get tested. We are not out of
the woods yet.
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Tioloco
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| Quote: Originally posted by Alm | | US containment of this epidemic have been poor from the beginning, there is nothing to "claim" here. US residents and Mex temporary workers in the US
were taking infection back to Mexico and other Mex residents (and US semi-expats) are now taking it from Mexico to the US. Minimal screening at the
border, minimal contacts tracking, minimal isolation. Not to say that they are doing it right in Mexico. |
Closing the border 100% between the 2 countries would have had a worse impact on the citizens of both countries than the virus will have. The numbers
are still not anywhere near panic status if you look at them on face value and stop listening to reporters hyping the situation for their viewership.
But panic sells news. Sadly always will.
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