Text Only

How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

February 18, 2021 This week has been wild. The whole state of Texas has been under a weather emergency from Brownsville to Lubbock and El Paso to Beaumont due to ice and snow. At no time in my life can I remember such a prolonged and widespread emergency down here since Saturday night. We have been subjected to rolling blackouts to deal with unprepared utilities and dwindling fuel supplies. The lack of electricity has caused water systems to go down, as the pumps that fill water towers are electric. It is really bad in my part of the state, as we are completely unused to such weather. Any point south of I10 (which runs from Beaumont to El Paso to Los Angeles) is usually so balmy that people from the northern United States come here upon retirement to enjoy the milder weather. This has been a real problem in terms of vaccine distribution. Most hospitals were prepared in terms of staffing, but the electrical supply situation has caught many administrators off guard. The electrical supply has sometimes put vaccine in jeopardy, as it must be kept cold until inoculation of a patient. So, when the vaccine has been threatened, the hospitals and clinics are left doing emergency inoculations of anyone that is available and needs a shot. Some of the hospitals and clinics are even closed, so people who were up for a shot had to reschedule.As for the patients, the roads have been completely impassible for most of this week, so many of them found getting to a clinic or hospital difficult. The real concern expressed locally is for the people who have had their first shot and need the second shot. No one really knew what would happen when the second shot is delayed.