Big Bend Regional Medical Center in Alpine, Texas, the sole hospital for 12,000 square miles, on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020. The facility has just 25 beds, and a makeshift COVID-19 ward where patients are sequestered at the end of a hallway. (Joel Angel Juarez/The New York Times)
That’s because in the rugged, rural expanse of far West Texas, there is no county health department to conduct daily testing and no CVS store for more than 100 miles. A handful of clinics offer testing to those who are able to make an appointment.
Out past the seesawing oil pumpjacks of Midland and Odessa, where roadrunners flit across two-lane roads and desert shrubs freckle the long, beige horizon, the Big Bend region of Texas is one of the most remote parts of the mainland United States and one of the least equipped to handle an infectious disease outbreak. There is just one hospital for 12,000 square miles and no heart or lung specialists to treat serious cases of COVID-19.
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