Revise gating criteria to help state rebound
Insufficient testing skews data in New Mexico
Effective Dec. 3, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced the red-yellowgreen gating criteria for N.M. counties to open up the economy. Although this policy claims to be “science-based,” it does not stand up to close examination.
The first problem is the goal of a positivity rate of less than 5% in the background of still-difficult hurdles for COVID-19 testing. Long waits and frustration do not encourage New Mexicans to get tested. Although new athome tests are available at learn.vaulthealth.com/nm, there is still a turnaround time of least four days. This is not an improvement on the timeline for contact tracing, starting quarantine and seeking medical treatment.
By comparison, reopening criteria in Washington state are simpler and more readily achievable: downward trends over two weeks for new cases and hospital admissions, ICU capacity at less than 90% and positivity of less than 10%. These are more reasonable gating criteria, particularly given that New Mexico’s insufficient testing capacity leads to grossly incomplete data sets.
The CDC revised recommendations for lockdowns this fall, favoring short-term measures only to protect the availability of ICU beds. Given this priority, every newly diagnosed COVID-19
patient should be immediately advised to contact a “hotline” to be assessed and potentially referred for new antibody-based treatments that are best administered early after diagnosis. The state Health Department must take greater responsibility to ensure availability of these and other new treatments to keep infected people at home and out of overburdened hospitals.
The governor’s restrictions during this pandemic have been the harshest in the entire country. Her policies are particularly unfair to N.M. restaurants, among the hardest hit in an industry that is in crisis. Contact tracing data in New York attributed fewer than 1.4% of urban infections to indoor dining, compared with 74% linked to private household gatherings. If those numbers are not compelling enough, it is important to point out that restrictions on restaurant dining did not result in improved hospitalization rates, as they continued to spike in December.
All gating measures in the state have been improving. In addition, it is time to acknowledge the pace of citizens acquiring immunity. As of Feb. 3, there have been 175,652 reported positive tests in the state, and 3,338 deaths. If one assumes 90% of these are adults and there are 1.604 million adults in the state, it follows that about 10.7% of all adults have some level of immunity based upon prior infections. Also, by last week, 10.7% of New Mexicans statewide had received at least one vaccine shot. That puts us at a minimum of 21% of adults with some level of immunity. If one includes a conservative multiplier of two for the number of unreported cases, this estimate can be improved to > 32% of New Mexicans. It will climb as vaccinations proceed over the next three to six months, to encompass those New Mexicans at highest risk.
The governor has made an important step in announcing that public schools can begin in-person learning this month. If this is indeed a priority, it should be rapidly followed by relaxing the gating criteria needed to reach “green” status. Limited indoor dining should be allowed in restaurants that have passed the COVID-Safe Practices Certification Program, an earlier mandate that was sensible. Entertainment venues, such as fun parks, bowling alleys and cinemas, should be provided with a target date in the spring when they can expect to reopen with safe social distancing practices. This target date will allow businesses to plan ahead and can be based upon the anticipated rate of vaccinations as well as current trends. To reinforce the importance of these timely adjustments, legislators should pass House Bill 139 to place limits on the governor’s emergency powers. Input by representatives of both parties is necessary to strike a fairer balance that returns New Mexico to health and prosperity this spring.