Covid-19

Zia Pueblo sees COVID-19 outbreak

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Editor’s note: Less then 24 hours after this report, the New Mexico governor’s office confirmed an outbreak on Zia Pueblo, with 31 positive cases, plus an outbreak on San Felipe Pueblo, with 52 cases. And Zuni Pueblo Governor Val Panteah confirmed 15 cases and one death on Zuni. Eleven members of Zia Pueblo in Sandoval County have tested positive for COVID-19, New Mexico In Depth has learned. 

“As of today April 5th, the Pueblo of Zia has confirmed 11 Zia Tribal Members, potentially 20, infected by COVID-19(Coronavirus),” Acting Governor Floyd Toribio wrote Sunday in a memo to tribal members. 

The pueblo, about 40 miles north of Albuquerque, has fewer than 1,000 members, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, making Zia one of the smallest pueblos in New Mexico. 

“If this statement does not make you realize how real and close to home this truly is, then we don’t know what will. We are a small, close-knit community with strong family connections,” Toribio said in the memo. 

The nature of the fast-spreading virus put tribal and state officials on alert Monday in a state that is home to 19 Pueblos, three Apache tribes, and a portion of the Navajo Nation. 

“We are endangered communities and one person lost to the virus takes a toll on the entire community,” said J. Michael Chavarria, Governor of Santa Clara Pueblo and Chairman of the All Pueblo Council of Governors, in an email. Many households in New Mexico’s tribal communities include multiple generations, with five or more family members living under the same roof, tribal officials said.

Covid-19

Friday’s COVID-19 update: Modeling the surge, handling the peak

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Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday told New Mexico that three more people have died from COVID-19, a total of 10 in the three weeks since March 11, the day the state identified its first positive case. Two were residents of a retirement community in Albuquerque. Meanwhile, the number of infections rose to 495, nearly a 25% escalation from the previous total, 403. It’s a striking rise, but “we are doing more testing,” the governor said, acknowledging a truism about an infectious disease: the more you test, the more you know. In other words, data is a good thing, a point the governor’s Human Services Secretary David Scrase returned to a few minutes later.

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Rio Rancho retirement community on lockdown after resident tests positive for COVID-19

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A Rio Rancho retirement and assisted living facility announced a lockdown Sunday after learning a resident had tested positive for COVID-19, New Mexico In Depth has confirmed. The resident is no longer on site, said a company spokesman, who  declined to provide further information about the individual. 

The resident appears to be the first publicly confirmed case in a New Mexico senior living facility, but it is difficult to say with certainty. State officials have offered few details about who has contracted COVID-19 in New Mexico. 

Senior living facilities are particularly vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which specifically names nursing homes as high risk facilities. Like nursing homes, senior living and retirement communities are home to groups of  “older adults often with underlying chronic medical conditions,” a high risk category for COVID-19. After the test came back positive, the Rio Grande Gracious Retirement Living facility ordered residents to remain in their apartments, one tenant and a company spokesman confirmed Tuesday evening. 

“We are locked down because we had one case in our community,” said resident Scott Houghteling, reached on his cell phone at his apartment.

Covid-19

Officials predict dire consequences if state doesn’t practice social distancing

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Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Tuesday announced a fifth COVID-19 death in New Mexico, a Bernalillo County man in his 40s. 

That was just the beginning of the grim news. State officials, using what they called a more accurate model than one quoted widely in recent days from the University of Washington, said anywhere from 2,500 to 12,500 New Mexicans could die over the life of the pandemic. That is, if they don’t do a better job of social distancing.Lujan Grisham said repeatedly during Tuesday’s hour-and-a-half long press conference that New Mexicans had to improve their commitment to not going out in public and to mingle in groups of fewer than five individuals. Social distancing is the best weapon New Mexico has to fight COVID-19, the governor said, looking into the cameras broadcasting her warnings from the Roundhouse in Santa Fe. As of Tuesday, New Mexico had 315 confirmed cases out of more than 13,000 tested, according to the state Department of Health.  But many more cases — and deaths — are coming.

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Las Cruces mayor urged to declare emergency to help limit size of groups

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Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima speaks at an online City Council meeting, March 30, 2020. Medical staff and city council members encouraged Mayor Ken Miyagishima to proclaim an emergency during a meeting of the City Council on Monday as some Las Crucens continue to mingle in large groups despite warnings against such behavior. The council gave Miyagishima emergency powers at a March 27 meeting but he has yet to use them because he didn’t want to make the situation urgent and cause panic among community members, he said during Monday’s meeting conducted online. 

But Councilor Gabriel Vasquez, District 3, citing people who are still seen out in public in large groups, at parks and at businesses, asked health care professionals sitting in on the online meeting whether they thought it was time for the mayor to take emergency action to limit the size of groups. “As an infection preventionist, I’m going to say yes,” said Twyla Anderson, the infection preventionist from Memorial Medical Center, a local hospital, said. “Unfortunately we would like the public to take recommendations and follow through, but I think we’ve seen behavior, you’ve seen behavior, that they just don’t take it seriously enough.

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New Mexico plans increase in daily COVID-19 testing

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COVID-19 testing sites are dispersed throughout the state. Map from the New Mexico Department of Health online testing location directory. While New Mexico has remained ahead of the curve nationally when it comes to numbers of people per capita tested for COVID-19 per day, it’s still only managed to test 12,527 since early March. That could change soon, according to state officials who say daily testing will double by next week, and keep growing. 

New Mexico’s state laboratory and the private Tricore References Laboratory are adding machines that will boost testing from the current 1,300 people per day, said David Morgan, communications director for the New Mexico Department of Health, with an expectation of 4,650 tests per day by April 20. 

Here’s how the numbers will increase over three weeks, according to Morgan: 

April 6: Increase to 2,625 tests per day, with 1,800 by TriCore and 825 by the state lab.April 13: Increase to 3,225 per day, with 2,400 by TriCore and 825 by the state lab. April 20: Increase to 4,650 per day, with 2,400 by TriCore and 2,250 by the state lab.

coronavirus

Navajo Nation readies extra medical stations, urges New Mexico to prepare for Navajo medical needs

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Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and Vice President Myron Lizer with health care officials and emergency responders at the federal medical station in Chinle, Ariz. on March 30, 2020. Photo courtesy of Navajo Nation. A federal medical station with 58 beds for COVID-19 patients is being established on the Navajo reservation at the community center in Chinle, Ariz. The beds and supplies were delivered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but it’s not enough said Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez.

Covid-19

COVID-19 in New Mexico: What data can tell us. What it can’t.

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New Mexico’s COVID-19 cases increased to 191 today, 17 people are hospitalized, one person has died. And now, the governor wants the U.S. Department of Defense to set up a staffed 248-bed combat hospital in Albuquerque. 

Lujan Grisham wrote it’s “urgently needed” in a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper because COVID-19 might overwhelm  New Mexico’s medical facilities. That’s where New Mexico stands at the moment, and the combination of those stats, not to mention all the data and modeling that’s swirling around the internet, might make you anxious. 

Many turn to data to help them understand the world. But the big problem with data about COVID-19 is the gaps. There are many.

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This VA Hospital Cited “Misleading” Data to Restrict Mask Use for Health Care Workers

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Hospital employees across the country have been blocked from wearing surgical masks in certain situations to protect against infection by the new coronavirus — including those they bring to work themselves. Workers at the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, have been told not to wear face masks unless they have lingering respiratory symptoms after an illness, are under surveillance following COVID-19 exposure or are treating patients showing signs of COVID-19. 

The restriction on wearing masks comes amid widespread shortages of personal protective equipment for health workers and confusion over shifting guidelines from federal officials. Such restrictions are in place at other hospitals, but there’s no indication yet that the practice is widespread. “There is little data that wearing surgical masks in general protect[s] the wearer from becoming infected with COVID-19, while giving the wearer a false sense of protection,” Andrew M. Welch, medical center director for the New Mexico VA Health Care System, noted in a Wednesday email obtained by New Mexico In Depth and ProPublica. On Friday morning, Welch sent staff another email responding to workers’ concerns about the mask ban.

Covid-19

State: NM public schools closed through end of year

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State public education officials on Friday announced all schools under the purview of the Public Education Department will remain closed through the end of the school year. 

PED Secretary Ryan Stewart said the new measure is “absolutely necessary” to keep students safe and slow the spread of COVID-19 and was always the back-up plan. The decision is in line with CDC guidelines and the state’s mitigation policies, he added. “We know that we still haven’t reached the peak of this,” he said. “It’s quite clear that it is not yet safe to be able to bring our students back into school and that we still have more to do in order to make sure we can come back.”

The announcement extends the original return date of April 6 through the end of the spring semester, which for most districts goes through the last week of May. Stewart said teacher pay will not be affected, and in a press release the PED said “School personnel and contractors will remain on call and continue being paid as usual.