El Paso County Judge Richard Samaniego issued a stay home order with a daily curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for the next two weeks in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, Sunday evening unless going to work or going to an essential service. Violation of the order is punishable by a $500 fine and $250 for not wearing a face covering.
“The reason for the new order is we are at a crisis stage,” Samaniego said via a virtual news conference.
Those who are accessing essential services can only send one person per family.
Samaniego said all El Paso area hospitals have reached capacity and ICU (Intensive Care Unit) units have reached capacity as well and the purpose of the curfew is to limit mobility in the community. Any peace officer can enforce the curfew as well as El Paso Sheriff, police chief and constables. “This is the kind of information that all of us here in the community need to take to heart and we do have to do something about the numbers we have been seeing,” Samaniego said.
There are 11,321 active cases in El Paso, Texas breaking the all-time high of active cases in the city and hospitalizations have increased by 300 % with 786 individuals currently hospitalized with COVID-19. Samaniego’s announcement comes on the same day Gov. Greg Abbott announced The El Paso Convention Center downtown would be converted into an auxiliary hospital of up to 100 beds to deal with the extreme surge of COVID-19 in the city.
Abbott said the state has sent 900 doctors, nurses, and other medical staff to El Paso to help assist with fighting COVID-19.
Hospitals in El Paso will soon airlift patients in Texas due to the crisis in the city and will work with the Border Regional Advisory Council to airlift critical care patients as the COVID-19 crisis escalates in El Paso.
Isaiah Ramirez may be reached at Prospector @utep.edu @_IsaiahRamirez1 on Twitter.
