An oxidized bronze statue of Tomás Sánchez, the founder of the bi-national metropolis Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico, gazed upon the Presidencia Municipal on a warm sunny day in mid-December. Inside the building, Dr. Victor Treviño, one of Sánchez’s 10th-generation descendants and Laredo’s Health Authority, accepted the key to the city of Nuevo Laredo from Mayor Carmen Lilia Conturosas for his efforts to obtain and distribute free COVID-19 vaccines for its residents. The recognition was bittersweet for Dr. Treviño.
“It took a lot of effort founding these cities,” he said as he crossed the international bridge toward Mexico shortly before the ceremony. “Though Nuevo Laredo is another country now, the people are still the same. Now the bridge is open, and we need to vaccinate as many people as we can. Politics, government, the virus doesn’t respect that or the border.”
For the past 22 months, Dr. Treviño and his colleagues battled a deadly virus that brought overflowing hospitals, one of Texas’s worst death rates, and political fights with Governor Greg Abbott over local COVID-19 policies. Despite a deficit of pre-pandemic medical staff, Laredo emerged as a model for international and humanitarian cooperation.
