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COVID-19 by the numbers
New Mexico health officials Friday reported 569 new COVID-19 cases, a slight dip from the day prior. There have now been 213,793 total COVID-19 cases; DOH has designated 197,316 of them as recovered.
Bernalillo County had 193 new cases, followed by Eddy County with 55 and Doña Ana County with 54 cases. Santa Fe County had 30 new cases. A three-day report will be issued this afternoon.
The state also announced six additional deaths. There have now been 4,425 fatalities. As of Friday, 216 people were hospitalized with COVID-19.
Currently, 73.8% of New Mexicans 18 years and older have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 65.3% are fully vaccinated. In the 12-17-year-old age group, 51.6% have had at least one dose and 39.9% have been fully vaccinated. In Santa Fe County, among those 18 years and older, 83.6% have had at least one dose and 74.9% are fully inoculated.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here.
Short of the finish line
The Tokyo Olympics concluded Sunday with the United States earning the most medals, but the Olympic marathon ended early Friday for Santa Fean Aliphine Tuliamuk, who dropped out of the race just short of the halfway mark because of hip pain. Her US teammate Molly Seidel earned a bronze medal in the race. Afterward, Tuliamuk tweeted, “I couldn’t physically make it to the finish due to what I believe to be a minor hip pain. More on that later, today I want to celebrate [these] amazing women and Olympians for their incredible grittiness.” Tuliamuk made headlines as one of the athletes who fought for, and won, the right to bring nursing infants to the games, which were otherwise cut off to family members.
Cannabis advisory board gets to work
The state Cannabis Control Division has announced the members of its new advisory committee. Santa Feans on the board include Emily Kaltenbach of the Drug Policy Alliance; Perry Martinez of San Ildefonso Pueblo; Chief Public Defender Bennett Baur and District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies. The committee is charged with advising officials on the development of rules covering best practices, the promotion of economic and cultural diversity in licensing and employment opportunities and protection of public health and safety, among other subjects.The group will hold its first meeting at 9 am Tuesday.
Briefs outline how unions favor secrecy
When it comes to keeping police discipline records secret, the City of Santa Fe is serious. As the New Mexico Court of Appeals considers a case SFR brought against Santa Fe over hiding the records, both the city’s largest employee union and its police union say they favor the policy in a pair of briefs now before the court. The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, along with other newspapers and TV stations, sided with SFR in an earlier amicus brief. SFR’s legal team argues that records of police discipline—such as those that show officers got in trouble when they fired their weapons or crashed their cars—should be public and that’s what the Legislature always intended. Mayor Alan Webber’s administration and the employee unions say there’s no way to determine if such records present facts or opinions and therefore they’re protected. After briefing ends late this month, a panel of appellate judges will decide whether to schedule oral arguments.
Listen up
A tool created by researchers at the University of New Mexico is making the process of identifying dead people more reliable. The New Mexico Decedent Image Database includes 150 million images of whole-body CT scans and is the first of its kind in the nation, reports KUNM’s Yasmin Khan. The scans help both forensic investigators and health care practitioners learn more about identifying unknown bodies, especially Indigenous people.
Tickets to ride
Tickets for future flights from New Mexico’s Spaceport America will cost at least $450,000 per seat—double what it charged in 2018. Virgin Galactic announced ticket sales as it reported last week that it lost $94 million in the second quarter. The company posted revenue of $571,000, barely enough to cover one seat on a future flight. (BTW: The starting price for the ride is less than the $495,000 median home price in Santa Fe for the second quarter this year.) Virgin Galactic, which successfully launched its first fully crewed space flight on July 11, also sells seats for microgravity research and professional astronaut training. Those start at about $600,000.
Opera in the park finale
This afternoon is the final opportunity to watch a video production from this season’s Santa Fe Opera at Santa Fe’s Southside Villa Linda Park, and tickets are not required. The broadcast of The Marriage of Figaro is preceded by youth performances at 3:30 pm, with the opera beginning at 4 pm. The Word has attended several of the previous shows and notes the spacious grassy lawn behind Santa Fe Place mall can be a nice place to spend the afternoon. The park is easy to access from both the Arroyo Chamiso Trail and the mall parking lot. This production runs in the three-hour range, however, so she highly recommends a picnic. Read SFR’s review of the Mozart opera here and the season’s other three productions (performances of all four are ongoing at the opera house) here.
Haze and hazy
Yesterday’s smoky haze triggered a red air-quality index in Albuquerque and made Santa Fe’s mountain views imperceptible. The National Weather Service says more hot, hazy and dry conditions are in store again today with record to near-record temperatures expected for parts of central and eastern New Mexico. In Santa Fe, temps are expected to reach 92.
Thanks for reading! The Word loves animals on the interwebs, so she has watched this new clip from the 3-week-old hippo at Albuquerque’s BioPark several times.
