coronavirus

Northwest New Mexico to see tightened COVID-19 restrictions while rest of state eases up

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A chart from the April 28 report of the NM COVID-19 modeling group shows the disproportionate concentration of COVID-19 cases in the northwest part of New Mexico. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham took baby-steps to reopen New Mexico’s economy Thursday, allowing non-essential retailers to provide curbside and by-appointment services, opening golf courses and making state parks available for day use starting Friday. 

But the new order sidesteps the state’s epicenter of COVID-19 — New Mexico’s northwest corner. Earlier in the day Thursday, the mayor of Gallup sent a letter pleading with the governor to declare a state of emergency in the city, which accounts for just 3.5% of New Mexico’s population but 30% of the state’s COVID-19 cases.  

“Our community is unable to adequately address the outbreak without the imposition of certain restrictions necessary to regulate social distancing,  public gatherings,  sales of goods,  and the use of public streets,” Mayor Jackie McKinney wrote. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez “fully supports the request and is hopeful that it will help to prevent Navajo people from traveling to the border town,” said a daily press release from his office. 

Indeed, a New Mexico COVID-19 modeling report available on the Department of Health website, dated Tuesday, notes the “NW region has the highest growth rate; week-over-week improvement is leveling off indicating additional actions are critical.”

The new public order announcing some loosening of the economic shutdown across the state specifically excludes McKinley, San Juan and Cibola counties.  And, the governor said Thursday those counties would likely see more restrictions. She did not give details, but said they were being worked on. During Thursday’s update Lujan Grisham announced a Navajo Nation Rapid Response Team, an acknowledgement of the severity of the situation.  

Members of a New Mexico rapid response team focused on the Navajo Nation, listed in a slide during Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s April 30 press conference.

‘We’re stuck in here.’ Woman describes life inside Luna County jail during pandemic

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The Luna County Detention Center holds 590 inmates at maximum capacity. As of Wednesday morning, just over 200 people were locked inside the jail in Deming, about 30 miles north of the Mexican border. Shauna Smith, a 43-year-old mother who has been incarcerated there since October, said the inmate population has been steadily thinning since the coronavirus pandemic began sweeping across New Mexico in early March. The county of roughly 24,000 people has seen just 347 tests for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, with three positive results as of Wednesday, according to the state Health Department. Like so many other jails and prisons around the state, few of those tests were performed at the Luna County Detention Center — four inmates and three staff members, all of whom were negative.

Behavioral Health

COVID-19 pandemic pushes mental health services online, with mixed results

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Less than two weeks before the first COVID-19 cases showed up in New Mexico, 22-year-old Sevía Gonzales went looking for a therapist to cope with the effects of an unhealthy relationship she recently ended.  

Before she could make an appointment for a face-to-face session, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued a stay at home order, thrusting Gonzales “…into an equally unbelievable situation.”

She looked for therapists offering remote services covered by her insurance and found a few practices, but each had long waitlists. “The system is just so overwhelmed it’s not even worth it to try to get an appointment at this point,” she said. 

Sevía Gonzales. In an effort to continue serving clients during the pandemic, many therapists and counselors across New Mexico have shifted to therapy online or over the phone. 

It’s a solution, but one that fundamentally changes the way therapists normally interact with clients, those in the industry say. Usually, therapy is done in the same room sitting face to face, a more intimate setting where therapists not only listen to what a client is saying but can pick up on nonverbal cues. 

“It’s better than nothing,” said Patsy Romero, CEO of Santa Maria El Mirador, an adult behavior and intellectual disability care center in Santa Fe. But online or over the phone therapy doesn’t replace face to face treatment, she said. 

Clients “express fear that the phones are not secure, or they’re not as forthcoming with how they’re really feeling,” Romero said, adding that body language is sometimes more important in therapeutic treatment than verbal communication. 

Face to face processes are much more effective than online therapy, she said.

coronavirus

NM prison inmate says soap in short supply; possible COVID-19 outbreak behind the walls ‘a big worry’

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Joseph Chavez. Image courtesy of his family. Joseph Chavez says he gets one “tiny” bar of soap a week, gratis. If he wants more, it’ll cost him. And yet, corrections officers have for weeks steadily reminded Chavez, 42, and the other inmates being held with him in solitary confinement cells at the Penitentiary of New Mexico’s south facility near Santa Fe that they need to wash their hands.

coronavirus

Hospital employees testing positive for COVID-19 amid PPE rationing

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Hospital employees across New Mexico are testing positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. A survey of several hospitals this week by NMID found just under 20. But that’s likely an undercount as state officials and many hospitals are refusing to disclose how many healthcare workers have the coronavirus. A spokeswoman for Presbyterian Healthcare Services confirmed Thursday 13 employees have tested positive across its statewide network — up from just two reported cases last week. Other hospitals confirmed a handful of infected employees.

coronavirus

New Mexico restaurants struggle to survive as pandemic stretches on

Gwyneth Doland, New Mexico In Depth By |

When coronavirus cases started popping up in New Mexico, Cherie Montoya and her team came up with a plan to adapt. Farm and Table owner Cherie Montoya and her partner, Danny Lopez

They came up with a Plan B, Plan C and all the way to Plan F, she said. It was important that her employees knew what would happen next as New Mexico began to follow other states into the pandemic crisis. So when the governor ordered that all food-service establishments should move tables 6 feet apart from each other, Montoya moved to Plan B, even though that meant her Albuquerque-area restaurant, Farm and Table, couldn’t seat nearly as many people. When the governor ordered all restaurants to close to dine-in customers March 18, Montoya switched to Plan C and began offering family-style dinner packages to-go.

coronavirus

COVID-19 strikes Native Americans at high rates in New Mexico

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Zia Pueblo erected barricades and a checkpoint at the entrance to their community. (Trip Jennings/New Mexico In Depth)

Native Americans make up almost 37% of the positive COVID-19 cases in New Mexico, more than three times their representation in the state’s population. That’s according to a new data dashboard the state Department of Health unveiled today. 

Native Americans represent around 11% of the state’s 2 million residents. In comparison, Anglos, who make up 37 percent of New Mexico’s population, represent just under 24% of the state’s positive cases. And Hispanics, 49% of the population, represent just 27% of the positive cases. 

Also disproportionately affected, but by a much smaller margin, are African Americans, who make up 2.6% of the statewide population, but 3.1% of COVID-19 cases.

Covid-19

COVID-19 upends election planning

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The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly upended the lives of New Mexicans in the past month. And if a majority of the state’s county clerks get their way, their primary election will be upended as well, with widespread voting by mail rather than traditional voting at polling sites. 

The pandemic, which has swept the globe and so far led to more than 20,000 American deaths, is picking up speed in New Mexico. 

Over the past month, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham through a series of emergency executive orders has largely closed down the state’s economy and ordered New Mexicans to stay home. Public health officials project that the number of illnesses in New Mexico will peak in mid to late May. No New Mexico public officials to date predict when the measures mandating New Mexicans stay home and congregate in groups no more than five will be lifted. 

A majority of county clerks (27 of the 33 clerks statewide) want to mail ballots directly to registered voters, rather than endanger the health of election workers and voters by holding a statewide election with more than 700 polling sites on June 2. Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver supports the idea. 

But the state Republican party, along with 31 Republican lawmakers and six county clerks, say a better option to directly mailing ballots to voters would be to promote widespread use of absentee voting, a two-step process available to all New Mexico voters, so that there are many fewer people showing up to the polls in person. 

In the middle is the state Supreme Court, which will hear arguments for and against a petition by the county clerks Tuesday.

coronavirus

Native Americans make up 31% of New Mexico COVID-19 cases

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Editor’s note: Shortly after we posted this analysis, on April 12, New Mexico updated its positive case count to 1,245, which would make this percentage 29%. We will update this again when the Navajo Nation updates its case count, later today or tomorrow. This percentage will most likely fluctuate every day but is, at this point, still nearly three times the percentage of the Native American population in New Mexico. At least 31% of New Mexicans who’ve contracted COVID-19 are Native American, according to New Mexico In Depth calculations from publicly available data. That’s almost three times their percentage of the state population as a whole.

coronavirus

State says it will help erect roadblocks to Pueblo land

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The governor’s office said Wednesday the state of New Mexico is helping Pueblo tribes erect roadblocks to keep non-tribal members off reservations, as outbreaks of COVID-19 have begun to spread through at least three of the communities —  and expectations are for the virus to impact others. New Mexico is home to 19 Pueblo tribes, with populations ranging from a couple hundred to 10,000 people. 

The governor will “go to any length to keep these areas closed if that’s what needs to be done. The state is exploring all mechanisms,” Nora Sackett wrote in an email today. Sackett is Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s press secretary. Yesterday, the office of Lujan Grisham confirmed 31 cases in Zia Pueblo and 52 cases in San Felipe Pueblo, both in Sandoval County.