HIDALGO COUNTY, Texas — The United States reached a grim milestone Tuesday in the COVID-19 pandemic. According to records kept by Johns Hopkins Hospital, as of 2 p.m. 400,000 people in this country have died from complications due to COVID-19.
Closer to home, the death toll its at 31,450 people in Texas, with 2,780 lives lost in Harris County.
In Hidalgo County, which is about a 5.5 hour drive south of Houston, 2,305 people have died there. And it’s there, in that border community, that our fellow Texans are working to put a face to this pandemic.
Just a few seconds to pause and honor the lives lost in the community that sits along the Rio Grande where the Latino culture is rooted in tight-knit family bonds which make this pandemic so hard to control.
“Affecting multiple people in one house,” like a nurse, “who lost her mom, her dad and her aunt,” said Jaclyn Trevino.
Trevino is the multimedia coordinator for Hidalgo County’s Media Relations team. In November Trevino’s office asked the community to send in photos of their loved ones who died from COVID-19. Residents includes the name, date of birth, date of death and the person’s city so the county could verify the connect to the growing death toll.
“Someone sent in their mom and dad. That happened a lot,” said Trevino, “where they lost a couple.”
Another family sent in a photo of a grandfather and a baby girl. Both lost their battle to the disease.
Trevino said it’s impossible not to feel the enormity of the photo project or the pressure to get the county’s first COVID-19 tribute just right.
“You know, a lot of people were not able to say goodbye. And this is like a way for them to, this was my mother. This was my father. We were able to remember them for them, I think.”
“We wish we could put a face to every single person that was lost because it’s just so unbelievably sad, you know?”
Hidalgo County is one of those Texas counties where it seems like everyone know everyone. The project, which took days of editing, hit close to home for Trevino because she included photos of her husband’s grandmother and aunt who died earlier in the pandemic. “That was hard.”
To the people who refuse to follow precautions or take the pandemic seriously 10 months into the national emergency, Trevino said, “I just hope that they will think of others and not just themselves. Think of their families. Like, it can happen to anybody.”
“This could be your grandma, this could be your mom, your dad, your brother. So, we do care. We do care about every single person that we lost.”
A 25-minute video memorial honoring the neighbors Teas has lost… grows longer with each passing day.
IF YOU LOST A LOVED ONE TO COVID-19 IN HIDALGO COUNTY, YOU CAN SUBMIT THEIR PHOTO: send photos along with name, city, date of birth, and date of death to covidmemorial@co.hidalgo.tx.us.