and sees as a "plus"

This government has had months, and still there is no national plan for dealing with this pandemic - and this country has become a global pariah.

Neither of those conditions lead to positive outcomes for the patients. I do wonder if the triage and ethics committees are taking into consideration whether the patients have the means to pay the hospital bills since there is a high proportion of uninsured people in the area. I also wonder if my high school band director is living in the Rio Grande City vicinity since that was his home--he would be in his 80s now.

Meanwhile, further north in the Bryan-College Station area, my brother is setting up oxygen concentrators at two to three times the normal rate. He set up another patient yesterday with a stationary unit at home and a provided a portable O2 concentrator for a woman who is in her 40s and currently in the COVID ward at the hospital. He is also developing a backlog for evaluating the patients with pulse oximeters to determine whether they qualify for either oxygen or ventilator therapy. Normally the oximeter evaluations are done within a hospital, but the hospitals appear to be pushing patients out of the hospital as quickly as possible so the checks are being conducted by the DMEs instead.

That's an excellent point and the exact reason why we need a universal heath care system like they have in other countries, including our closest neighbor to the North - who is keeping us out, with good reason, these days. I'm just South of a seasonal tourist destination and though my mainly rural county has been doing okay during this pandemic *knock on wood*, the recent influx of out-of-state tourists (despite the governor's quarantine) is very concerning. I've seen cars from all over, especially from Florida! It's usual to see cars from Vermont and New Jersey, closest to here, but I have noticed that I've seen none from our other close neighbor, Canada.

Sounds like your brother is right on the front lines, these days. Sounds like his work is essential. Does he work remotely or is he required to visit the sites he's evaluating? And that would put you on the front lines as well - you need to stay safe as well...

and has also been inside the households of patients who may have been quarantined in another room or who have not been released from the hospitals. While he was wearing gloves and a N95 mask, he was not wearing any hazmat suits or other PPE. Thus far he has not had to pickup any ventilators from deceased patients which would significantly increase my risk to exposure, but at some point that will likely occur.

I believe that he has four patients that are COVID positive (he has about 80 patients on his list). Of those 80 patients, about 60% are on vents, 30% on oxygen therapy, and about 10% on percussive vests that loosen mucus in the lungs.

I keep myself isolated in my bedroom for the most part and I've been obsessive keeping things clean (at least in the kitchen and living room). However, I'm also on his laptop computer assisting with administrative work almost every evening. While my risk to exposure is low, it is not zero since he has to remove the SD cards from the ventilators to download the data to his laptop for both the regular quarterly downloads, but also for when physicians request the data prior to a patient appointment or when they are being requalified for insurance. I try to avoid any contact with my face while I'm working on his laptop and I wash up afterwards, but there have been a few times when I've been on that laptop for four or five hours straight. And for added measure, within the last few weeks the cat has picked up the bad habit of sitting on the printers and walking on top of the computer keyboards.

sad and alarming due in part to poverty. However, the more revealing statistics of the Texas outbreaks center in counties with large cities. Harris Cty/Houston-58,480, Dallas Cty./Dallas-43,026, Bexar Cty./San Antonio-33,555, Tarrant Cty./Fort Worth-22,665 and Travis Cty./Austin-18,394. The White and Hispanic citizens of Texas are the largest populations ethnic wise and almost equal the same percentage in the state. Hispanics at 39% and Whites at 42%. So yes there will be Hispanic COVID CASES among the counties with the largest outbreaks just on percentage. But given poverty, underlying health issues and lack of access to healthcare, Texan Hispanics would be hit harder/more than White Texans. The issue IS, anywhere in any state, the counties with the largest population density is where COVID19 hits the hardest volume wise.

My comments. I have seen comments on other blogs claiming that the largest outbreaks in Texas are along the US/Mexican border and where the highest percentage of Hispanics live. They are trying to scapegoat Hispanics for the spread of Coronavirus.
That is hogwash. The largest outbreaks are nowhere near the border. They center around population density, not by ethnic make up.