Frontline El Paso registered nurses who have been struggling with the Covid-19 catastrophe racking El Paso County will hold a virtual press conference Friday morning at 9:30 a.m. MT to condemn the injunction issued by the Eighth Court of Appeals late Thursday.

Media who wish to participate in the virtual press conference are requested to register at https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QQmQITooRISK41fa1e9yYQ

In a divided 2-1 decision the Court blocked major provisions of Judge Ricardo Samaniego’s El Paso County's Stay Home/Stay Safe order that he extended to December 1 to protect residents in the face of one of the worst surges of the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S.

The El Paso Department of Public Health on Thursday morning reported 29 new Covid-19 deaths, the most ever in the county. Hospitalizations are also at a record. Texas is the first state in the U.S. to exceed one million infections.

NNU strongly agrees with the dissent by Justice Yvonne Rodriguez who said the Court should not be accommodating a Governor who cites as the “harm” he may suffer “that his dignity as the State’s top law enforcement officer will be offended” if Judge Samaniego’s order is upheld.

Justice Rodriguez warned of the consequences at a time when “bodies continue to stack up in refrigerated trucks here in El Paso because our morgues are full and the Medical Examiner has a backlog of corpses” and “every other patient in our hospitals is a Covid-19 patient.”

In an amicus brief filed Wednesday in support of Judge Samaniego’s order, NNU noted that more than 50 RNs in El Paso County have been infected this year, and “our members witness the daily tragedy of a hospital system that has been completely overwhelmed in recent weeks, leading to a backlog of corpses as local funeral homes are filled to capacity.”