She went first to a hospital so desperate for help that nurses recently made 49 phone calls to find a bed 700 miles away to airlift a dying man with the virus.
Hours later, Muñoz was granted just a few seconds to lay eyes, but no hands, on her first born, who was quickly whisked away.
For nearly a month, this borderland of 2 million people in South Texas pleaded for a field hospital, but not until Tuesday was one ready and accepting patients.
At DHR Health, one of the largest hospitals on the border, nearly 200 of the 500 beds belong to coronavirus patients isolated in two units.
“It’s a really, really ugly feeling,†Muñoz said of watching her son being taken away.
At the hospital, a television monitor displays the struggle in real time: Teal rectangles represent occupied hospital beds, and green rectangles are open beds.
A Christian relief charity that opened a coronavirus field hospital in New York’s Central Park visited the border in mid-July with an eye toward building another facility.
Some patients are sent as far away as Oklahoma City, and few survive after the long flight — leaving families with the burden of getting the bodies back home.
Among them is the challenge of squaring best practices with the realities of South Texas, including guidelines that recommend the mother stay isolated at home and the baby be placed in the hands of another caregiver.
Muñoz, 25, didn’t know she had the virus when she left her home in the border town of Falcon last week for her son’s birth.
They weren’t going to let me get my son out of the hospital unless I was negative,†said her husband, Nicolas Garcia.
After the birth, her son was a phone app away: The hospital lets COVID-positive mothers call the nursery over a video chat.
Muñoz said she would go for now.
“I love you,†she said.
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