Posted on 06/29/2020 12:39:08 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
(CNN) - Chris Van Gorder says he's seeing a telling trend in the hospitals he runs.
Coronavirus patients are showing up in emergency rooms after calling 911 from the US-Mexico border.
"They'll literally come to the border and call an ambulance," says Van Gorder, president and CEO of Scripps Health, a hospital system in southern California.
The rise in ambulance traffic from the border, which several officials described to CNN, is a symptom of the pandemic's spread in the region -- and a sign of the many connections between communities in both countries.
"There just is not a wall for viruses at the border," says Josiah Heyman, director of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. "The wall is an illusion, because the two sides are really woven together."
An increase in cross-border coronavirus cases, which began getting public attention in May, overwhelmed some California hospitals and spurred the state to create a new patient transfer system to help.
"It's an unprecedented surge across the border," says Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association.
In the past five weeks, more than 500 patients have been transferred to hospitals across the state from California's Imperial County, which has the state's highest per capita rate of coronavirus cases -- and, according to officials, has seen a large number of patients crossing from Mexico.
But Van Gorder, Coyle and other officials in California say this isn't an immigration issue.
Most of the coronavirus patients crossing the border, they say, are Americans.
In a call with state hospital leaders earlier this month, the head of California's emergency medical services authority, Dr. David Duncan, described the steady stream of patients coming to Imperial County as "gas on the fire."
"We've got this continual flow of Covid coming across the border in the form of US citizens that carry and continue to escalate and fuel the Covid pressures that we see," Duncan said.
Officials estimate about a quarter of a million US citizens live across the border in the Mexican state of Baja California. Many work in the US and have family members there. Some regularly go to US hospitals when they need medical attention. Others decided to cross this time because Mexican hospitals were overwhelmed by a crush of coronavirus cases.
"What has happened as the situation has worsened on the Mexican side of the line is that a number of the US citizens are returning to the United States to seek care for Covid-19," says Coyle of the California Hospital Association.
oh, fabrics. how many of these have there been? three?
So calling it an emergency gets them a private ride to an ER where they can’t be refused.
How about not moving to a cesspool of a country?
How many of these “US citizens” are anchor babies who are US citizens only because their Mexican mothers crossed the border into the US to have a baby?
Not a real shock that so many cases have hit Imperial County in southern California. According to the San Diego Times, Imperial County’s 21,000 illegal immigrants make up nearly 13 percent of its 164,000 residents. And that probably doesn’t count the ones appearing on the border and threatening to bring more cases in with themselves. Let’s create a third world country out of a state. They can call it a sanctuary county. They aren’t very imaginative in the zoo of the left coast.
rwood
"Most" is an understatement. And the others have Passports/Visas that allow them to legally enter. There are a lot of retired Americans living in Baja, especially in resort and fishing towns. There are also quite a few Americans living in Mexico and commuting to USA, or working and living south of the border. San Diego County has the capacity to accept these folks, Imperial doesn't. If you get a nasty case of the 'rona, you do NOT want to be in a Tijuana hospital.
[If you get a nasty case of the ‘rona, you do NOT want to be in a Tijuana hospital. ]
There are more than a million American expatriates living in Mexico. A good percentage of them are retirees who can live down there cheaply.
They did not say “US Citizens”, they said Americans. In Spanish, anyone from any country in the Western Hemisphere can say “soy Americano” truthfully, because if you are from North America, then “soy de norte american” and from South America, “soy de sud america”
I tend to believe this. Most people don’t know that much of the traffic at the borders are Americans who either live in Mexico or work there.
“We’ve got this continual flow of Covid coming across the border in the form of US citizens that carry and continue to escalate and fuel the Covid pressures that we see,” Duncan said.
Officials estimate about a quarter of a million US citizens live across the border in the Mexican state of Baja California. Many work in the US and have family members there. Some regularly go to US hospitals when they need medical attention. Others decided to cross this time because Mexican hospitals were overwhelmed by a crush of coronavirus cases.
“What has happened as the situation has worsened on the Mexican side of the line is that a number of the US citizens are returning to the United States to seek care for Covid-19,” says Coyle of the California Hospital Association.
You mean the uptick in cases is not caused by going to bars? Color me surprised.
PROVE IT.
some probably American expats....living the dream in cheap, diseased, cartel owned Mexico.....
That channel is left-leaning as are all the channels here in town. The only two anchors NOT left leaning are John Hook and Kari Lake of Fox 10 News.
I doubt that retired Americans in Mexico walk to the border and call 911. It is the Mexican born in the US to get free delivery and welfare benefits who will do this.
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