Gov OKs Phase 1 Reopening, Requires Masks for Everyone

With most regions of New Mexico mostly meeting public health criteria criteria, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced today that the first phase of economic reopening will begin this weekend statewide, except for McKinley, San Juan and Cibola counties.

But when people go out, they will be required to wear face masks in nearly all public spaces.

Specifically, starting Saturday, May 16, all retailers may reopen, but can only operate at 25% capacity and must abide by the state's COVID-safe practices. Retail spaces do not include movie theaters, performance spaces or amusement parks.

Other non-essential businesses also can open and operate with up to 25% capacity, but employers should implement work-from-home policies if possible.

Houses of worship can operate at 10% capacity and the governor also announced limited criteria for summer children's camps and activities, such as limiting child-to-adult ratios to 5-to-1.

Human Services Secretary David Scrase also alerted parents to be mindful of an uptick of COVID-19 cases among children. The state has gone from having 7% of its cases occur in children up to age 19 to 13%, nearly doubling in two weeks. That puts New Mexico with the second highest percentage of cases among children after Wyoming, he said. Parents should pay particular attention to abdominal symptoms, he said, which present more prominently in children. Scrase also said other immunizations have dropped by 20% during the pandemic, and that with restrictions easing, parents should catch their children up on them. "We don't want to have other outbreaks of other infectious diseases," he said.

As for businesses not opening up this weekend—namely restaurants, spas and gyms—they will be part of Phase 2 openings, which could happen in early June if the next set of gating criteria—data points indicating adequate levels of testing, contact tracing, hospital capacity and, most importantly, rate of spread—are met. "Your personal decisions will determine whether or not we move into this next phase," Lujan Grisham said.

The governor accompanied the news of the start of Phase 1 with a new rule that will require everyone to wear face masks in public spaces. That rule excludes outdoor exercise and, when restaurants reopen, will exclude wearing a mask while eating or drinking (as this is not possible).

Lujan Grisham also demonstrated the ease with which can make a no-sew mask, using a red bandanna. "I don't know that is enough to get me on a do-it-yourself or cooking show," she said. "But it's a start."

The state will not be punitively enforcing the mask rule, the governor said, although she said it was "possible a first responder or police officer might bark at you." Rather, she noted, "we are expecting the right kind of role modeling. The only way we live in a COVID-19 world is if we model and we start to change to a new normal. If you don't do this you end up right back where you were."

And while some businesses can now re-open, the stay-at-home health order remains in effect, she said, "particularly if you're sick or you're vulnerable, we're going to keep pressing that message."

Other rules that remain in effect include:

Both the governor and Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel also doubled down on encouraging all workers to seek testing at public health offices for COVID-19. Increased testing, the governor said, is key to continuing to contain the virus by identifying and isolating carriers. The health department maintains a list of testing sites here.

The news of the Phase 1 re-opening followed Scrase's review of the current COVID-19 situation statewide.

Today, the state reported 155 additional positive tests for COVID-19 and 12 additional deaths. This brings the total number of cases to 5,364 and the total number of fatalities to 231. As of today, 200 people are hospitalized*. The health department has designated 1,515 COVID-19 cases as recovered. A breakdown of new cases and fatalities is available at the end of this story.

San Juan and McKinley counties had the highest number of new cases: 56 and 53, respectively. Both counties, along with Cibola County, are exempt from the new order, but will be allowed to move into the preparation phase that began two weeks ago for the rest of the state

While the state continues to have new cases, it has mostly met or is close to meeting the gating criteria for the first phase of reopening, although Scrase said automation of the state’s contact tracing program is still ongoing. Lujan Grisham noted that the state New Mexico has just over 100 COVID-19 contract tracers and needs to have approximately 670 soon.

"I think we can begin to reopen, but it is a tightrope walk," Scrase said. "We need all people in New Mexico to be the ones who bend that curve and keep it flat."

In terms of the effective transmission of the virus (Rt), most regions have met or are closing in on the target of 1.15 and have lowered their rates since last week, with the exception of the Southwest region, where the spread rate has increased.

On the bright side, all regions appear to be on a downward trend when it comes to the seven-day average for new cases.

The state's May 12 modeling report indicates the Northwest and Metro regions have the shortest doubling times, while the longest ones are in the Southeast and Northeast regions.

Yesterday's modeling report also showed hospitalization rates are the highest in the Northwest region.

The report also looks at mortality rates where, again, the Northwest is the highest. In terms of the case fatality rate, both the Northwest and Metro regions are the highest and are similar.

The mortality rate estimates probability of death per 100,000 population for each region. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines it as "a measure of the frequency of occurrence of death in a defined population during a specified interval."

The case-fatality rate, on the other hand, calculates the ratio between confirmed deaths from the disease and confirmed cases.

The CDC defines the case-fatality rate as "the proportion of persons with a particular condition (cases) who die from that condition. It is a measure of the severity of the condition."

This week's modeling report also drills down into COVID-19's impact by ethnicity and age groups. For instance, white people have the highest case fatality rate, 8.4%, followed by Native Americans, categorized by the state as American Indian or Alaska Native, at 3.4%. The latter group has a much higher age-adjusted hospitalization rate: 213.8 per 100,000 population, followed most closely by blacks at 29.1%.

New cases

New fatalities

Congregate living facilities