County judge predicts more than 1,000 El Paso virus deaths by year’s end as he works to craft new plan

EL PASO, Texas -- El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego offered a dire coronavirus warning Wednesday evening about what we could see in the next two months.

“We're going to hit a thousand (deaths) easily before the end of the year... I think that's a low number,” he said. “Things are going to get bad before they get better.”

For perspective – El Paso has added 205 deaths to the official pandemic death toll so far here in November alone.

The judge said he plans to draft a new health order, one that he is currently coordinating with local businesses, to try to stem the tide of Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

A state appeals court recently overturned Samaniego's prior order that shut down all non-essential businesses in the county for two weeks.