COVID-19 caseload second highest yet in N.M.
Santa Fe County reports its largest number of infections during crisis, with 20 confirmed cases of virus
A day after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham rolled back the state’s economic reopening amid a surge in coronavirus cases, New Mexico saw its second-highest number of new cases since the pandemic emerged in the state.
The 301 cases reported Friday included 20 in Santa Fe County — its highest daily count yet — and the first case in Mora County, which so far had avoided the virus. The state’s largest one-day total was 331 on June 5.
Six more people in New Mexico died after contracting COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, including an inmate at the Otero County Prison Facility. Five hundred and thirty-nine people have now died of COVID-19.
“Given the rate of increase that we are seeing in the state today and taking today’s number of individuals that we lost here in the state, at this rate, we could have 639 potentially new deaths in the next five weeks,” the governor said Thursday.
“And when I make decisions, particularly the tough decisions that need to be made to protect
New Mexicans and New Mexico families, it isn’t lost on me that given the months of effort here in just five weeks we would more than double if we do nothing the number of deaths in New Mexico,” Lujan Grisham continued.
Human Services Secretary David Scrase said Thursday the 79 percent jump in daily case counts over the past two weeks is “basically representative of the pandemic being out of control.”
Scrase called attention to alarming increases in Bernalillo and Doña Ana counties — where more than half of the new cases have come from. That’s “very worrisome” given the opportunity for the virus to continue running rampant in Albuquerque and Las Cruces because of the population density, Scrase said.
Bernalillo County added 73 new cases Friday, while Doña Ana County had 44, according to the state Department of Health.
Scrase called attention to the fact that “almost the whole United States has turned red,” signifying runaway case increases in nearly every state except the north corner of the Eastern Seaboard.
Scrase argued that the biggest factor driving rising case numbers in New Mexico is likely from people taking a cue from a partial reopening of the state economy and more sweeping reopenings in neighboring Texas and Arizona. People saw the economy begin to thaw and might have taken that as a sign that perhaps things were going back to normal, he said, nothing that public health officials have observed people are traveling more and spending more time in close proximity to others after months of social distancing.
“Everything the governor and Dr. Scrase said yesterday remains true and important and is underscored by today’s number of new cases,” Nora Meyers Sackett, a spokeswoman for the Governor’s Office, said Friday.
The fact that 44.6 percent of the case spikes in the past 14 days were seen in people between the ages of 20 and 39 “speaks to the behaviors of this age group” and suggests that perhaps many people resumed their lives largely as normal, attending backyard parties, playing sports and going to family gatherings, Lujan Grisham said Thursday.
“The virus did not go anywhere,” Lujan Grisham said. “It is here. It is a vicious, dangerous, silent invisible enemy, and you have to treat it as such. It is everywhere. And if we let our guard down even for a second, and we did that, New Mexico — the whole country did that — it will spread with a vengeance.”
Scrase argued that the biggest factor driving rising case numbers in New Mexico is likely from people taking a cue from a partial reopening of the state economy and more sweeping reopenings in neighboring Texas and Arizona.