Morning-Word-Covid
COVID-19 by the numbers
New Mexico health officials yesterday reported 749 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the statewide total so far to 221,086. The health department has designated 198,958 of them as recovered. Bernalillo County had 171 cases, followed by Lea County with 140 and Doña Ana County with 60. Santa Fe County had 20 new cases.
The state also announced four additional deaths; there have now been 4,455 fatalities. As of yesterday, 341 people were hospitalized with COVID-19.
Currently, 75% of New Mexicans 18 years and older have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 66% are fully vaccinated. Among those in the 12-to-17-year age group, 55.3% are partially vaccinated and 42.3% are fully inoculated. In Santa Fe County among adults 18 years and older, 86.8% have had at least one dose and 76.6% are fully inoculated.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here.
NM Gov announces mask and vaccine mandates
Citing rising COVID-19 cases fueled by the Delta variant that threaten to once again overwhelm New Mexico hospitals, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham yesterday reinstated an indoor mask mandate. As of Friday, Aug. 20, everyone over the age of 2—regardless of vaccination status—will be required to wear a mask indoors unless eating or drinking. The new requirement, outlined in a public health order from Acting Health Secretary Dr. David Scrase, remains in effect through Sept. 15. Under a separate public health order, all New Mexico private, public and charter school employees will have to either be vaccinated against COVID-19 or otherwise submit to COVID-19 testing on a weekly basis, comparable to the current policy for state employees. In addition, all workers in New Mexico hospitals and congregate care facilities are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Finally, attendees at this year’s State Fair, Sept. 9-15, also will have to show proof of vaccination.The new masking and vaccine requirements follow Los Alamos National Laboratory forecasts that show cases could rise up to 1,000 cases daily by the end of the month. In addition, hospitalizations have been steadily rising, with hospital leaders recently sounding the alarm. “This is familiar territory,” the governor said during an afternoon news conference yesterday, in which she and Scrase discussed the mask and vaccine mandates, as well as a variety of topics related to the pandemic. “What we must do is enact policies that reduce the rate of infection. We know the pandemic is not over and that we are in a pivotal moment in the state. So our top, top priorities are always: saving lives…and protecting our hospitals, but we can’t continue our economic recovery and our positive economic journey if we have out-of-control COVID cases in the state of New Mexico.” While the state policies don’t cover local government employees, the City of Santa Fe on Aug. 9 passed a new emergency declaration that requires city employees to provide proof of vaccination or weekly negative tests. City spokesman Dave Herndon tells SFR via email that as of yesterday, 57.4% of employees had reported being fully vaccinated. “Because it’s a new policy, responses are coming in daily and there’s likely to be trending improvement in that number,” Herndon wrote.
State preps as federal benefits end
With federal unemployment benefits set to end Sept. 4, state officials have been trying to spread the word about job and training opportunities. Workforce Solutions and State Personnel Secretary Ricky Serna and others hosted an online forum yesterday (which the department says it will post on its YouTube channel), highlighting resources such as job listings, career training, childcare and more. Programs that will be impacted by the Sept. 4 expiration date include Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation and Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation. The state also is highlighting joint funding between Workforce Solutions and the Higher Education Department to state colleges and universities for the creation of six fast-track career training programs. That initiative, part of a Ready NM workforce and education partnership, has designated $1.5 million in federal workforce funding to support short-term training programs. “The Ready NM project really connects the dots for New Mexico job seekers,” Serna said in a statement. “Aligning job vacancies with minimum requirements and short-term training programs presents New Mexicans with new and advanced career opportunities that come at little or no cost.” Registrations for upcoming trainings on 3D printing, information technology and fiber optic certification, among others, can be found here. DWS also has launched a “hot jobs” play list on its YouTube channel.
Energy Secretary visits NM
US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm visits New Mexico today and tomorrow, following an invitation from US Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-NM, last March. Granholm’s visit, which follows the US Senate’s passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, will focus on the state’s transition to clean energy and its concomitant economic impact. New Mexico’s two Democratic US Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández and Melanie Stansbury will join Heinrich and Granholm for parts of the visit, along with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez. Acccording to a news release, the tour includes demonstrations of a co-op electrification project in Albuquerque; tours of companies using or developing hydrogen and zero-carbon emission technologies; and a tour in Farmington of a blue hydrogen facility. That tour will be followed by a roundtable discussion with tribal and local leaders regarding the Biden administration’s “commitment to bringing the fossil fuel workforce and tribal communities into clean energy generation.”
Listen up
On the most recent episode of Film Talk Weekly, hosts Jacques Paisner and Gary Farmer talk with Emmy award-winning writer and producer Kirk Ellis (John Adams) about Billy Wilder’s life and films, in the first of a two-part series (next week, they’ll discuss Wilder’s 1951 film Ace in the Hole). The weekly show, which airs at 1 pm on Talk 1260 AM and 103.7 FM, also features a regular roundup from film insiders Paisner and Farmer about all the news impacting the New Mexico and national film scene.
Eye on hemp
Hemp is easier to grow in the northern part of New Mexico. That’s one take-away from research into hemp cultivation begun in 2019 by faculty in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at New Mexico State University. NMSU has partnered with growers such as Las Cruces-based Rich Global Hemp to help them understand the area’s soil quality. “In 2019, when growing hemp became legal, there was a tremendous number of farmers who got into it but didn’t realize what they were in for,” Jeffrey Anderson, agronomy and horticulture agent for the Doña Ana County Cooperative Extension Service, says in a recent news release from the school. “Hemp has nutritional deficiencies they didn’t know about, and those who were good enough farmers were able to recognize and correct it.” Kevin Lombard, superintendent of the NMSU Agricultural Science Center in Farmington, New Mexico and associate professor of horticulture in the NMSU Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, says more research needs to be done on the risks and benefits, as well as how to develop guidelines and policy across the state and on the Navajo Nation. For now, he says, “research has not caught up with grower enthusiasm.”
NEH awards grants to NM institutions
The National Endowment for the Humanities yesterday announced $28.4 million in grants for 239 humanities projects across the country, including $232,149 to New Mexico institutions. Of those, CENTER, in Santa Fe, received the largest award: $162,500 in the humanities discussion category, for a lecture series titled “The Democratic Lens: Photography and Civic Engagement,” which will examine the historical and contemporary role of photography in civic participation. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum received a $50,000 grant in the digital humanities advancement category for the planning stages of a digital catalogue raisonné for Georgia O’Keeffe to allow scholars and the public to engage with O’Keeffe’s works. The O’Keeffe Museum also received a $10,000 preservation assistance grant for an item-level collections survey of O’Keeffe’s bound material, such as: Some French Moderns Says McBride, a collection of articles by art critic Henry McBride that were selected, designed and formatted by Marcel Duchamp; a leather-bound edition of The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde, adorned with original drawings by photographer Edward Steichen; and numerous books gifted to O’Keeffe by her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz. New Mexico State University also received a preservation grant, for $9,649, to purchase furniture and supplies to rehouse Native three-dimensional object collections at the university museum.
Days like these
If you liked yesterday, you may enjoy today. Santa Fe has a 20% chance of precipitation, according to the National Weather Service, which forecasts isolated showers and thunderstorms after noon on an otherwise mostly sunny day with a high near 86 degrees and north wind 5 to 15 mph becoming southwest in the afternoon. We may see more rain tonight, when the chances for precipitation rise to 40%.
Thanks for reading! The Word dutifully read this new defense of the Comic Sans font, which reminded her of this hilarious McSweeney’s imagined monologue.
