Texas Reports Its First Locally Transmitted Zika Case

Texas just reported its first case of locally transmitted Zika virus. Cameron County, which includes the border city of Brownsville, reported the case. This adds to the nearly 240 cases that have been reported in Florida, 170 of which involved pregnant women. The case in Brownsville did involve a woman but she was not pregnant. It is pretty apparent that Zika will soon spread all along the Gulf Coast, endangering the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of pregnant women. And we all should remember that the Republican Congress spent all summer refusing to provide any emergency funds to fight the virus, leaving the states to largely on their own to deal with the problem, until they finally agreed to help in the fall budget deal. Under a Republican Congress and a Trump administration, I would expect that the states will have to continue to deal with the virus without much help from the federal government – unless there is an outbreak near Mar-a-Lago.