The Virus Found a Crowded Houston Neighborhood, Sparing One Nearby

Mr. Muñoz, 64, worried about contracting the virus, but he had to keep showing up to his job as a cleaner at a cancer hospital. He planned to retire this summer.

Then he got sick. Fever. Cough. Mr. Muñoz worsened and tried for days to get admitted to a hospital. He struggled to breathe. By early May, he was hospitalized with Covid-19.

“After he went to the hospital, I wasn’t able to sleep,” said his partner, a 43-year-old from Guatemala who requested anonymity because she and her four children were undocumented.

Then she got sick. She isolated herself. “I couldn’t talk,” she recalled, describing a low point in her battle with the virus. Two of her children also became ill. Over time, they all got better.

But Mr. Muñoz did not. He died on June 13.

The grief was immediately compounded by economic uncertainty. She worked only part-time at a laundry — not enough to survive on. “At times, I wake up at night thinking, ‘What am I going to do, my God,’” she said in Spanish. “It is very difficult. I pray a lot to God to give me strength.”