‘Fauci of South Texas’ battles spread of virus
Cardiologist has turned into a crusader against COVID-19, educating Laredo residents and blasting Texas officials
LAREDO — Each day around 6 p.m., Dr. Ricardo Cigarroa goes through the same grim ritual. He sits at his desk and counts the dead.
“Five to seven death certificates, that’s how many I’m signing every single day,” said Cigarroa, a 62-year-old cardiologist, as he stared at the paperwork piling up one afternoon last week. “It only gets worse.”
At the end of the pandemic’s deadliest month, Laredo held the bleak distinction of having one of the most severe outbreaks of any city in the United States. As cases soar, the death toll in the overwhelmingly Latino city of 277,000 now stands at more than 630 — including at least 126 in January alone.
When the coronavirus made its way to the borderlands almost a year ago, the bespectacled Cigarroa could have just hunkered down. He could have focused on his profitable cardiology practice, which has 80 employees. He could have kept quiet.
Instead, Cigarroa has become the top crusader and the de facto authority on the pandemic along this stretch of the border with Mexico.
On regional television stations, he calmly explains in his baritone voice, in English and Spanish, how the virus is evolving. Known for making COVID-19 house calls around Laredo in his old Toyota Tacoma pickup, he is interviewed so often that Texas Monthly calls him “The Dr. Fauci of South Texas,” comparing him to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert — though he holds no official government portfolio.
Lately, Cigarroa has been losing his patience.
Looking exhausted in a video posted on Facebook, he blasted political leaders for allowing the virus to rampage through this part of South Texas. Cigarroa singled out Gov. Greg Abbott for refusing to allow Laredo to impose stricter mitigation measures.
“To the governor: It’s OK to swallow your pride,” Cigarroa said, stunning some viewers with a warning that the virus could kill 1 in 250 Laredoans by midyear. “It’s OK to say that you’re not going to do it, and then do it to save lives.”
Pleading with people to consider civil disobedience in the form of staying home from work if politicians fail to act, he added, “The only thing that will save lives at this point will be staying home and shutting down the city.”
But his battle is not just with the governor: Though the city is 95 percent Latino, a group that has suffered a disproportionately high number of cases and deaths, many local leaders have been reluctant to close down businesses, and some in the public at large still flock to bars, restaurants and holiday gatherings.
The Republicans, including Abbott, who dominate politics at the state level in Texas seem unmoved by appeals for more regulations. Abbott has rolled back occupancy at bars and restaurants and imposed a mask mandate in most of the state. But he said in November that he was ruling out “any more lockdowns,” determined to keep Texas — even parts of the state staggering under the effects of the virus — open for business.
“Increased restrictions will do nothing to mitigate COVID-19 and protect communities without enforcement,” Renae Eze, a spokesperson for the governor, said of requests for tighter restrictions in Laredo.
Her implication — and Cigarroa admits it is not entirely wrong — was that local officials had not been aggressive enough about holding people accountable for complying with the limited social distancing measures in place. But Cigarroa said “a strong leader” is needed to guide cities through the crisis.
When Laredo’s hospitals began struggling with the influx of coronavirus patients, Cigarroa, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Medical School, took the unconventional step of converting his practice into a makeshift COVID-19 clinic.
The daily grind takes its toll. In July, Cigarroa himself came down with COVID-19. At first he thought it would be a case of relatively mild “corona light” and opted to rest at home for a few days.
But then he awoke short of breath, in a panic.
He opted to be taken to University Hospital in San Antonio, where a brother is a doctor.
“I went down like a dog baying at the moon,” Cigarroa said. “I was a bit callous before that. I came back a much better physician.”