EL PASO, Texas — The Texas National Guard has sent a 36-member team to El Paso to assist morgues in the border region with the number of dead as a result of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

Statewide, the Texas health department on Saturday reported a one-day high of 12,597 new virus cases, nearly 20,500 dead and more than 8,200 virus hospitalizations.

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“The Texas military will provide us with the critical personnel to carry out our fatality management plan and we are very grateful to them for their ongoing support,” El Paso Mayor Dee Margo said in late Friday when the deployment was announced.

The pandemic is blamed for more 300 deaths in El Paso County since October, 853 total since the pandemic began.

Jail inmates are being paid to move bodies and county leaders are offering $27 an hour for morgue workers.

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County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, in a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott asking for support for a 10 p.m.-5 a.m. curfew in the county, said mortuaries are being overwhelmed.

“As of (Friday), our Medical Examiner’s Office is reporting that 234 fatalities are being held at our main morgue and at our nine mobile morgues,” Samaniego wrote.

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