As COVID-19 deaths mount, El Paso adds mobile morgues, Texas officials say

As COVID-19 surges and hospitals reach capacity, El Paso, Texas, is adding mobile morgues to store bodies, officials say.

El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said Sunday the medical examiner’s office added a fourth refrigerated morgue, KVIA reported. Just a day earlier, the county leader tweeted a third mobile morgue unit was on its way.

“If that doesn’t put our situation into perspective I don’t know what will,” Samaniego tweeted.

The county hasn’t been able to keep pace with the number of dying COVID-19 patients, Samaniego told KFOX on Sunday. It had a backlog of 94 bodies on Monday still requiring an investigation by the medical examiner, the news outlet reported.

On Monday, El Paso reported it had a total of 605 deaths from COVID-19 and more than 18,000 active cases.

Intensive-care units at every hospital in the county have exceeded capacity, forcing them to create alternate care sites and send patients to other cities, officials say.

Last Thursday, Samaniego ordered all “non-essential” businesses to be shut down for two weeks as the county experienced the highest infection rates of the pandemic.

“Our hospitals are at capacity and our medical professionals are overwhelmed,” Samaniego said. “If we don’t respond we will see unprecedented levels of death.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit with businesses a day later, calling the shutdown unlawful and inconsistent with Gov. Greg Abbott’s orders.

On Monday, Texas passed California for the most confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. with more than 937,000, The Associated Press reported. California had just over 936,000 and Florida was third with about 807,000, the AP reported.

This story was originally published November 2, 2020 at 12:46 PM with the headline "As COVID-19 deaths mount, El Paso adds mobile morgues, Texas officials say."