One County Has 85 Infants With the Virus

'That's why we're asking people to wear face masks,' says Nueces County Judge Barbara Canales
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 18, 2020 12:00 PM CDT
One County Has 85 Infants With the Virus
Stock image.   (Getty Images)

One Texas county is offering two sad statistics: Eighty-five infants with the coronavirus and one who died from it. "We currently have 85 babies under the age of one year in Nueces County that have all tested positive for Covid-19," said Annette Rodriguez, director of public health for Corpus Christi Nueces County, per CNN. "These babies have not even had their first birthday yet. Please help us stop the spread of this disease." The news comes amid a coronavirus upsurge in Nueces County, where cases spiked dramatically in July—some two months after the state's Phase II reopening and one month after Phase III reopening.

"That's why we're asking people to wear face masks," said Nueces County Judge Barbara Canales, per KSAT. "I am now having to order additional body bags and morgue trailers. People have to understand how real it is." The Corpus Christi Caller Times reports that the infant boy who died was just six weeks old and suffered from a co-infection; pending an autopsy, his death is considered a case of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). "Unfortunately it does not discriminate," said a county medical examiner about the coronavirus. "It affects people with comorbidities, and with pre-existing condition like diabetes, hypertension and obesity, but now it affects everybody. Nobody is secluded from infection." (More coronavirus stories.)

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