Morning-Word-Covid
CDC map shows NM COVID-19 surge
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent update for COVID-19 “community levels,” updated every Thursday, shows more than twice as many New Mexico counties now have red or “high” levels compared with last week. The CDC framework combines case rates with two hospital metrics and shows, for the seven-day period of July 14-20, 17 New Mexico counties—10 more than last week—now have “red” or high levels. Santa Fe County remains “yellow” or medium. Only four counties now have “green” or low levels—down from nine last week. The CDC’s recommendations include indoor masking for people living in counties with high community levels. The increase comes amid a national surge of cases attributed to the most recent Omicron subvariant: BA.5. In an update last week, New Mexico Acting Health Secretary Dr. David Scrase said officials believe the subvariant accounts for approximately 50% of cases here and expect it to be the dominant variant by early August. During that news conference, Scrase reiterated the state does not intend to require any restrictions in response to the BA.5 surge, noting: “We feel like the tools we have right now to fight the pandemic are so good that overarching government requirements aren’t needed.” Scrase reiterated that stance to SFR in an interview earlier this week, noting “The CDC [has] come through with some really excellent tools that I use every day,” such as the community levels and accompanying recommendations (at the bottom of the community levels page); transmission levels for hospital use; and a quarantine and isolation calculator.
Supreme Court rules on use of post-conviction DNA evidence
The state Supreme Court yesterday overturned a prior Appeals Court decision and granted a new trial based on DNA evidence for a Roswell man convicted for a fatal shooting in 2012. According to a news release from the court, the decision addresses legal issues the court had not previously decided “concerning a state law for post-conviction consideration of DNA evidence.” The decision reverses the state Court of Appeals ruling and reinstates the district court in Chavez County’s order for a new trial for Gregory Marvin Hobbs, who was sentenced in 2013 to seven years in prison for fatally shooting Ruben Archuleta Sr. during an altercation. The district court ordered a new trial for Hobbs based on DNA testing of the handgun Hobbs fired that showed a “very strong match” with the victim; Hobbs argued the DNA test results showed the victim had touched the handgun, which supported his testimony the shooting had occurred when he and Archuleta struggled over the gun. “We hold that in analyzing whether to grant post-conviction relief, the district court must first make a threshold determination as to whether the test results are ‘exculpatory,’ that is, they reasonably tend to establish the petitioner’s innocence or negate the petitioner’s guilt,” the Supreme Court wrote in an opinion by Justice Briana H. Zamora. “Second, if the district court finds the DNA evidence is exculpatory, the controlling inquiry…is whether and to what extent the evidence would have changed the result of the petitioner’s trial.”
Ronchetti releases tax-cut plan
Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Ronchetti yesterday released an economic plan that features tax cuts for many New Mexicans, including a cut in gross receipts tax, and takes aim at incumbent Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Ronchetti’s plan calls for cutting GRT every year between 1/8% and 1/2% and requiring any city or county that wants to raise GRT to receive voter approval in order to do so. As the Albuquerque Journal reports, Ronchetti’s plan would likely “face skepticism in the Legislature where the Democratic majorities have often preferred smaller-scale tax changes or ‘revenue neutral’ plans.” The state Democratic Party also responded to Ronchetti’s plan with skepticism, tweeting: “With his luxurious mountain-top mansion and his walk-in wine cellar, any economic promise out of @MarkRonchettiNM is undermined by his millionaire lifestyle and any proposed plan is undermined by his lack of experience.” The Lujan Grisham administration is currently phasing in a 0.25 percentage point reduction in GRT along with $1 billion in one-time tax rebates. A spokeswoman for the governor’s campaign, Kendall Witmer, said in a statement Ronchetti’s plan copies what Lujan Grisham “has already accomplished, clearly recognizing the governor’s record of success in growing the economy, creating jobs, recruiting companies to New Mexico, and cutting taxes.”
COVID-19 by the numbers
New cases: 1,305; 583,366 total cases
Deaths: 34; Santa Fe County had 326 total deaths; there have been 8,172 total fatalities statewide. Statewide hospitalizations: 193. Patients on ventilators: 11
Case rates: According to the state health department’s most recent report on geographical trends, for the seven-day period of July 11-17, Grant County had the highest daily case rate per 100,000 population: 70.8, followed by Lincoln County at 68.3 and Quay County at 68.1; Santa Fe County’s case rate was 44.3, up from 42.4 the week prior.
Resources: Vaccine registration; Booster registration Free at-home rapid antigen tests; Self-report a positive COVID-19 test result to the health department; COVID-19 treatment info: oral treatments Paxlovid (age 12+) and Molnupiravir (age 18+); and monoclonal antibody treatments. Toolkit for immunocompromised individuals. People seeking treatment who do not have a medical provider can call NMDOH’s COVID-19 hotline at 1-855-600-3453. Vaccines for children: Parents of children ages 6 months to 5 years can now schedule appointments for vaccinations at VaccineNM.org.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here.
Listen up
In advance of the Santa Fe Opera’s Saturday night opening of Tristan and Isolde, Destination Santa Fe Opera podcast host Jane Trembley talks to mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton (Brangäne), self-professed Wagner nerd, about interpreting her characters through a queer lens. Want more Wagner prep? Conductor Joe Illick will introduce the 12 key leitmotifs from Tristan und Isolde (and invite you to sing through high points of the opera together; no singing experience necessary) from 10 am to noon today at SITE Santa Fe in a free program (no tickets required). Then, at 1 pm tomorrow (July 23), Dramaturg Cori Ellison will discuss the opera with Directors Zack Winokur and Lisenka Heijboer Castañòn, also at SITE and also free.
Tribes push for inclusion in Colorado River talks
The LA Times interviews Daryl Vigil, the water administrator for the Jicarilla Apache Nation in New Mexico, in its most recent weekly newsletter about climate change, “Boiling Point.” Vigil has been at the forefront in pushing for tribes’ involvement in discussions about the future of allocation and planning for the Colorado River. According to the story, tribal nations have established rights to approximately one-fourth of the river’s average supply and 12 of the tribes continue to have unresolved water rights claims. Nonetheless, tribes have historically been excluded from discussions about the river’s future, despite many living with serious water infrastructure problems. Vigil cites a letter sent to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland last year endorsed by 20 tribes, which specifies the tribes’ requests. “At the top of that list is this fulfillment of trust responsibility for engagement in the policymaking process and in terms of fulfilling settlement promises of infrastructure and federal dollars, and then fulfillment on things like basic human rights in terms of universal access to clean water,” Vigil tells the Times. “Tribes have been waiting for the federal government to deliver on infrastructure promises, in some cases for decades.”
Yes, you can complain about the traffic
Insurify, which is an online site where people can compare insurance rates, this week released a list of the worst cities in each state for commuters (with the exception of nine states for which the company says it had insufficient data). Here’s the good news: Apparently New Mexico had sufficient data to be included. And no New Mexico city made the top 20 worst cities for commuters. Insurify says its data scientists “referred to both publicly accessible and proprietary data to identify the city with the worst commute in each state. They ranked cities’ commute difficulty based on a composite score of factors, including commute time, driver safety, and traffic congestion levels.” Those data sources include: driving records, US Census data and US Transportation data, among others. In New Mexico, Santa Fe is apparently the worst city for commuters, with the mean travel time to get to work clocking in at 19.7 minutes. Moreover, Santa Fe has a “commute difficulty score” of 10.4, which is apparently 5% worse than the state average. We have not requested and perused the data (yet), but Santa Fe ranking poorly for any type of driving experience seems easy to believe.
Come back, monsoons!
Today and tomorrow should feature mostly sunny skies, a high temperature near 93 degrees, with scattered storms and a slight chance for rain (30% today and tonight; 40% on Saturday and Saturday night). Those chances increase, the National Weather Service forecasts, on Sunday, to 50% during the day and 60% at night with a high daytime temperature of 88 degrees. Right now, the likelihood of rain continues to increase heading into and throughout next week.
Thanks for reading! The Word plans to visit the newly named Beastie Boys Square the next time she goes to New York. In the meantime, she’ll just listen to Paul’s Boutique for the 3 millionth time.
