Texas National Guard deployed to help El Paso with morgue overflow

The Texas Division of Emergency Management said in a statement that "after completing an assessment of the situation on the ground in El Paso County this week, the state has mobilized a team of 36 Texas National Guard personnel to provide mortuary affairs support beginning at 0900 tomorrow," CBS' El Paso affiliate reported Friday. The city's mayor, Dee Margo, said on Twitter Friday that a "rapid increase in cases and hospitalizations" has brought on a "spike in deaths." The Texas Military will now provide "the critical personnel" to carry out the city's "fatality management plan."El Paso city and county have secured a "central morgue location to further support the Medical Examiner's Office, funeral homes and mortuaries with additional capacity," he said.There are now more than 300 people in an intensive care unit across El Paso County due to COVID-19. El Paso health officials reported nearly 1,074 new COVID-19 cases and eight deaths on Saturday, bringing the totals to 80,291 cases and 853 fatalities, according to the city and county COVID-19 dashboard.Intensive care units across the city and county are so overwhelmed with COVID patients that they're flying the infected to other Texas cities in order to save lives, CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca reported earlier this week.