Medical Center Hospital in Odessa has set up a hotline for locals to call to ask questions and be assessed for COVID-19 symptoms. (Mitch Borden / Marfa Public Radio)
By Mitch Borden
In recent weeks West Texas has seen a drop in the number of people being hospitalized with COVID-19. At the same time, hospitals in the Midland-Odessa area have received doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and have already begun vaccinating employees.
Classical Midday with Roseland Klein has been a mainstay of Marfa Public Radio since the station's earliest days. (Carlos Morales / Marfa Public Radio)
By Carlos Morales
For more than a decade, Roseland Klein has taken West Texans on illuminating tours of classical music every week on Marfa Public Radio. But now, the longtime radio host is retiring at the end of next week—bringing her time on air to an end.
During the last round of public coronavirus testing in Presidio, officials say over 550 Big Bend residents were tested. (Carlos Morales / Marfa Public Radio)
By Public Radio Staff
For the second time this month, the state of Texas will hold mobile coronavirus testing in three communities in the Big Bend area.
The upcoming public testing will be in Alpine, Presidio and Fort Davis. All testing is free and open to residents throughout the Big Bend region.
In the Big Bend region, officials in Presidio are encouraging residents to shelter in place and limit traveling. The notice comes after local cases surged to record highs last month, making Presidio County one of the nation’s top coronavirus hot spots at the time.
Local health authorities say most cases, then and now, are from the city of Presidio, where the predominantly Hispanic community faces barriers to accessing quality healthcare and frequent testing.
Ruidosa church, November 2020 (Carlos Morales/Marfa Public Radio)
By Ari Snider
These days, there’s not a whole lot going on in Ruidosa. By most estimates, the town is home to about 15 people. But it used to be one of the more substantial settlements in the Big Bend region, and now a local group is working to restore one of the last monuments to that past era before it crumbles back into the earth.
A dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by BioNTech and Pfizer. (BioNTech via REUTERS)
Texas hospitals are getting 225,000 doses of the long-awaited COVID-19 vaccine this week. But with such a limited supply, health care workers in some parts of the state are nervous they might be left behind.
Four years after a Target logo appeared on the side of an abandoned railroad building off a lonely stretch of desert Highway, the Big Bend’s smallest big-box retailer is no more. (Carlos Morales / Marfa Public Radio)
By Carlos Morales
Four years after a Target logo appeared on the side of an abandoned railroad building off a lonely stretch of desert Highway, the Big Bend’s smallest big-box retailer is no more.
It turns out the tiny Target Marathon—which, despite its nickname, was located in the unincorporated stretches of Altuda, Texas—was in bad shape. The landowner, according to Brewster County officials, was worried the structure would collapse; and fearing any of the hundreds of visitors who stop for photo ops every year could be severely injured, decided to demolish it.
There are few things as magical as flowing water in the desert. Such places refresh both the body and the spirit, and in a land like ours, their presence can feel like an unearned gift. We immediately sense such places … Continue reading
By Karen Brooks Harper, Aria Jones, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Sami Sparber, Texas Tribne
The first doses of the long-awaited COVID-19 vaccine hit Texas soil on Monday, bringing hope to a virus-ravaged state even as the daily death toll soars to its highest point since the pandemic first swept the nation nearly a year ago.
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By Carlos Morales
Presidio County officials this week reached an agreement with the city of Marfa to provide its contact tracing services to the areas just outside the Marfa city limits.
With the state’s efforts at providing effective, reliable contact tracing in question, counties and cities have had to set up their own programs—and in rural corners of Texas it’s been a challenge to get started. But now three months in, the initiative has proven successful and, according to local health officials, has shown to reduce local spread of the virus.
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By Mitch Borden
The first wave of coronavirus vaccines will be distributed to hospitals across Texas beginning next week, but Odessa facilities won’t receive doses, despite shrinking hospital capacity and a high number of active cases.
The news came as a surprise to local health officials who were left perplexed, because neither of the city’s two hospitals were slotted to get any of the 224,250 doses planned to be distributed across Texas beginning around Dec. 14. The reason for the omission was even more confusing, they said — miscommunication with the state agency tasked with distribution kept them off the receiving list.
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By Mitch Borden
Following the City of Midland’s continued refusal to instate or enforce a mask mandate or coronavirus restrictions, Heather Bredimus formed the Facebook group Masks in Midland to help direct locals to businesses taking coronavirus precautions.
Now, in less than a month, the group has about 1,400 members and counting. Marfa Public Radio’s Permian Basin reporter Mitch Borden talked to Bredimus about her group and how her community is responding to the pandemic.
