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EDINBURG, TEXAS - Dr. Ivan Melendez, Hidalgo County\\u2019s local health authority, has given his wrap-up on 2020, a year like no other for his profession.

At times during the year, Hidalgo County led the nation in deaths and hospitalization rates caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, at one point, Melendez, a frontline healthcare hero, himself tested positive for COVID-19.

While things appear to have settled down, Melendez said Rio Grande Valley residents cannot let their guard down during the holiday season. He urged everyone to continue to practice good personal hygiene, keep wearing face masks in public, to practice social distancing, and not gather in large crowds.

\\u201cOur community was Ill-prepared. The world was ill-prepared (for COVID-19),\\u201d Melendez said, in his 2020 year in review.

\\u201cThe virus is like the marathon and you don\\u2019t train for the marathon the weekend before. When you are a boxer you don\\u2019t go to your wife and say, hey, babe, have seen my shorts I have a world championship fight next week. It doesn\\u2019t work that way. You have to be training, you have to be ready.\\u201d

In an exclusive podcast with the Rio Grande Guardian, Melendez rattled off a number of grim milestones, noting that the pandemic was at its worst in Hidalgo County in July 2020.

\\u201cWhere did we fail? Our population was very sick. Our baseline state of health\\u2026 despite being the No. 1 in diabetes, hyper-tension, morbid obesity, lack of access to healthcare, 20 percent un- or under-insured, a porous border to a third world country that is just chaotic, 29 being the average age in our community, it was the perfect storm. Despite that we were the worst among the worse.\\u201d

Melendez said he cannot accept praise for a job well done.\\xa0

\\u201cWhen people come to me and say, you guys have done a great job, well, I don\\u2019t think so. I think we have made a great effort but you measure a job by outcome. You don\\u2019t say, oh my God, you have really tried hard to paint that house. No, you say the house looks good. We had the highest mortality rate.\\u201d

So, did the efforts of healthcare professionals on the frontline in the battle against the coronavirus match the results? Melendez said, no.\\xa0

\\u201cOur efforts were gargantuan, but our results, you cannot argue\\u2026 our results were not good,\\u201d he said.

\\u201cAnd so, our lesson learned, from my perspective, is we need to have our community in a better state of health.\\u201d

Editor's Note:\\xa0 Go to the Rio Grande Guardian website to read the full story.\\xa0

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