Thursday, April 25, 2024
Fair, 70°Wind: 10.4 mph, S
Welcome to our new web site!
To give our readers a chance to experience all that our new website has to offer, we have made all content freely avaiable, through October 1, 2018.
During this time, print and digital subscribers will not need to log in to view our stories or e-editions.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said state public health orders mandating that people stay home will be continued through at least May 15.
“It is too early to stand outside and feel like we won,” Lujan Grisham said at a Wednesday, April 22, news conference. New Mexicans, she said, should recognize that life will not return to pre-virus normal until there is a vaccine for COVID-19.
The state has flattened the curve that measures the growth of the virus, the governor said, but it remains a serious health threat, especially in northwest New Mexico.
“Everyone will be wearing a mask when you go out for quite some time until we’re all immune,” New Mexico Human Services Department Dr. David Scrase said at the news conference. For every positive COVID-19 test result in the state, he said, there could be 40-50 more people who are positive for the virus but haven’t been tested. He said the number of cases is especially high in McKinley, Sandoval and San Juan counties, as well as Bernalillo County. The curve is almost flat in Santa Fe County, Scrase said, which is a model for the entire state in how to do social distancing to prevent the spread of the virus.
Scrase said the state and country has to be particularly careful about the virus, because, like the 1918-19 Spanish Flu and the 2009 swine flu, there could be a second and possibly even a third wave of COVID-19.
New Mexico Department of Health Sec. Kathy Kunkel said the number of virus testing sites has increased from seven on March 13 to 64 across the state, and now has the capacity to test more than 5,000 people per day. Kunkel said the state is now focused on increased testing in targeted communities around the state, including long-term care sites, which includes 35 nursing homes; tribal communities, including 16 of the state’s 23 tribes; and asymptomatic essential-business workers, which includes workers in healthcare, grocery stores and the construction industry.
Lujan Grisham said the state will follow a phased approach to reopening its economy. As part of the preparation phase New Mexico is currently in, the governor said she has created a 15-member New Mexico Economic Recovery Council to guide economic recovery. Even as more businesses reopen, she said, large gatherings likely will not be allowed in New Mexico or anywhere else across the country until there is a vaccine for the virus.
