Promising forecast

Coronavirus is on a downward trajectory, and the efforts of many New Mexicans are pulling the state, and our spirits, up

“Gray skies are gonna clear up

Put on a happy face

Brush off the clouds and cheer up

Put on a happy face.”

After months of depressing news and deep sacrifices, the lyrics introduced in the early 1960s musical “Bye Bye Birdie” finally seem appropriate. New Mexicans appear to have turned the corner on the coronavirus pandemic, and shutdown orders are being reduced. There is still concern about later spikes, but that truly will depend on us and how safely we venture out into public.

After all, those relaxed restrictions that kick in Monday are because of weeks of personal sacrifices by many New Mexicans. New Mexico Human Services Secretary David Scrase says we have succeeded in reducing the virus spread rate to 1.09, meaning each person who is sick infects, on average, 1.09 others. The goal is to get the number below 1, he said, meaning the virus starts to die out.

In COVID-19 lingo, it means the curve has been flattened! For now. And that’s reason to celebrate.

A revised public health order going into effect Monday allows restaurants, gyms, salons and malls to reopen at partial capacity. For the first time in more than two and a half months, New

Mexicans will be able to get a haircut from someone other than a brother-in-law with a shears and salad bowl or a Flowbee.

During a news conference Thursday,

Gov. Michelle Lujan

Grisham announced the partial reopenings and emphasized it’s critical people continue to wear cloth masks while out in public — a step that will help keep employees and customers safe, especially from asymptomatic carriers.

Under the new order, restaurants statewide will be able to operate at 50% capacity for dine-in services but can’t serve at a bar or countertop, presumably because of proximity concerns. (It’s unclear why the order allowing patio dining excludes breweries.) Gyms can also reopen at half capacity, while hair and nail salons, barbershops, tattoo shops, massage services and indoor malls can operate at 25%, in some cases by appointment only. Like your bangs, that’s a long way from where we were in March. Meanwhile, retail stores will remain under a restriction requiring them to “meter” or limit the number of customers and employees inside at any time.

Drive-in theaters will be allowed to fully reopen, although we’re not sure why they were ever closed. Hotels can book more rooms, and a 14-day self-quarantine order for airport arrivals will be amended to permit some business travelers to come and go more easily. More state parks are reopening, some with capacity limits. Bars and theaters remain closed, but the governor says she hopes to gradually relax more business restrictions in June.

In short, the long-awaited reopening is starting. Business owners are eager even with the restrictions, and the initial response last week to permitted patio dining indicates customers are hungry to spend money — money our state and local governments desperately need spent to generate taxes after months of a near economic shutdown.

And it’s all possible because the majority of New Mexicans took the administration’s caution and guidance to heart, limiting community spread, preserving medical equipment and ICU beds, and saving lives.

The good news spreads into the Navajo Nation, one of the hardest hit regions in the nation, which has seen COVID-19 hospitalizations steadily decline since April 26. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez credits tribal members’ cooperation with lockdowns and public health orders as factors in the decline of COVID-19 hospitalizations.

If there’s a silver lining here, it’s the world can no longer plead ignorance to the poverty; the lack of running water, electricity and broadband connectivity in many homes; and the shortage of funding for health care on Native lands. Those issues should not be allowed to recede into the shadows as this virus recedes.

On the fiscal front, both Lujan Grisham and the Legislature’s leading voice on budgetary issues, Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, have said that $1.9 billion of state cash reserves and roughly $1.1 billion of federal stimulus funds could alleviate the need for deep spending cuts during next month’s special session. While Smith expressed concerns about the outlook for future years given the double whammy of pandemic closures and a drastic collapse in oil prices, both he and the governor said budget cuts for coming years wouldn’t be “too painful” if the federal government gives the state flexibility to spend stimulus funds.

The pandemic has also shined a light on the generosity and strength of our fellow New Mexicans — people like mother of three Buffy Mayerstein, a 35-year-old registered nurse at Lovelace Medical Center who has tended to COVID-19 patients nearly every day since the pandemic began. “I’m spending all this time caring for everyone else’s families and not my own,” Mayerstein told the Journal’s Anthony Jackson, who spent much of a week shadowing her. “I have to still be responsible for other people’s lives before I go home ... and I don’t have very much left to give.”

Then there was the Journal’s May 11 story about Christina Salas, an assistant professor of the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at the University of New Mexico, and Laura Kief Shaffer, a flight nurse for CSI Aviation, who answered a plea from the Navajo Nation for donated masks, face shield parts and nasal swabs.

And the May 17 column from UNM medical student Baillie Bronner, who reached out to the dean of Medical Student Affairs to start a childcare program for front-line providers without caretakers for their kids. The initiative blossomed into students staffing four COVID-19 hotlines, collecting PPE, creating educational materials and getting groceries to those who were unable to get them themselves.

Their inspiring stories and so many more are true rays of sunshine in this dark pandemic.

While reopenings are lifting spirits and putting people back to work, the governor is right that efforts must continue to combat the virus. Social distancing, mask-wearing and hand-washing are more important than ever as we begin to venture out. Public health officials say infection hot spots can be curtailed by continued efforts, so again containing the virus is literally in our own hands. More than 300 New Mexicans have died from complications from COVID-19, and as the clouds appear to be parting, the best way we can honor their losses is to prevent more.