When you talk to Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez and show him the packed flea market in Brownsville and wide-open bar life on South Padre Island Saturday night, he shakes his head and wonders whether all he's doing to spot the spread of COVID-19 virus in his county is being negated by his neighbors to the east.
There, residents are still under a shelter-at-home order, a 10 p.m. curfew, mandatory facial coverings, and limited to essential travel.
Over at Cameron, gatherings are supposed to be limited to 10 people, restaurants limited to 25 percent capacity and bars remain closed. If alcohol is sold, the business must sell at least 50 percent food sales.
But take a cruise over to SPI and you will see that everything remains open way past the 10 p.m. curfew, bars are packed, and parking is hard to find. It isn't until past midnight that traffic starts to leave and bars to empty. This is a curfew?
Where are these people from? They're not from SPI. They are from all over the valley. And since the bars are closed in McAllen and Brownsville, revelers make their way there to party and to mingle.
"What more can I do?" Cortez asked a friend from Brownsville. "The beaches in Cameron might as well be open if South Padre Island is allowed to be wide open. If anyone catches anything there, guess where it will end up at? Right here."
Cortez has been very busy lately. His county is averaging more than 550 positive cases in the last seven days. But he knows better than to trust the numbers. Early in the game the numbers lagged behind the reality, making it difficult to take any effective action. Testing results lagged days, sometimes weeks and at the beginning in Cameron County a full month.
The fake numbers gave people a false sense of security, making them believe the hoaxers who said it was a phony crisis.
It wasn't until people starting dropping all around them and battling the virus for weeks and months in the hospital and at home plugged into the oxygen tanks to help their battered lungs along that reality started sinking in..The number of deaths due to COVID-19 reported in July 22 was 137 and today both the state and Cameron County agree that there have been 746 confirmed virus deaths, an increase of 600 deaths over a one-month period.
The numbers of active cases shown in state stats indicate that in a one-month period from the beginning of July to August, the numbers of active cases in Cameron County zoomed from a little over 6,000 to 20,853 August 29.
And yet, the party goes on until past midnight at SPI and the pickers are crowded around the booths at the flea market looking for a good deal.
Pandemic? What pandemic? Let the party go on and dame una libra de tomate!