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COVID-19 by the numbers
On Friday, New Mexico reported 245 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the statewide total so far to 196,221. Bernalillo County had 59 new cases, followed by Doña Ana County with 46 and San Juan County with 36. Santa Fe County had 12 new cases. The state no longer reports new cases over the weekend.
The state also announced one additional death; there have now been 4,024 fatalities. As of Friday, 116 people were hospitalized with COVID-19.
Also on Friday, the state reported an amendment to the public health order, which allows houses of worship to now operate at 100% capacity. According to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s press secretary, Nora Meyers Sackett, the change “was made in light of recent US Supreme Court decisions that enjoin states from enforcing capacity limits on churches that are more restrictive than other entities like factories and schools,” such as the April 9 Tandon v. Newsom ruling.
While the new order allows 100% capacity for all houses of worship, they are “strongly encouraged to protect their congregants and communities by enacting social distancing measures to bolster public health and minimize risk of viral spread of their own accord,” Meyers Sackett said via email.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here. If you’ve had experiences with COVID-19, we would like to hear from you.
State to resume Johnson & Johnson vaccine
Late Friday afternoon, the US Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifted the pause on the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. The decision followed the recommendation by a CDC vaccine advisory committee, which examined reports of six cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in individuals who took the vaccine. The agencies released a statement that they “have confidence that this vaccine is safe and effective in preventing COVID-19” and have “determined that the available data show that the vaccine’s known and potential benefits outweigh its known and potential risks in individuals 18 years of age and older.” Just prior to the decision, New Mexico’s health department released a statement that it would resume distribution of the J & J vaccine following the federal decision. DOH also released a statement Friday that noting that “contrary to an article published in a New Mexico media outlet on Friday, the New Mexico Department of Health has not received any reports of blood clots associated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in New Mexico.” The state did not name the outlet, but a KRQE story interviewing a woman claiming to have been hospitalized with one of the rare blood clots after receiving a Johnson & Johnson vaccine is no longer available on the television station’s website.
Crews mostly contain two NM fires
As of yesterday, crews working on fires that burned over the weekend in San Miguel and Torrance counties reported they were mostly contained. The Peterson fire, located northwest of Las Vegas in San Miguel County, was 70% contained and had burned 30 acres. Students and staff from United World College, as well as some residents in Las Vegas, voluntarily evacuated as a precaution. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. In Torrance County, the Paradise Loop Fire in Edgewood was 65% contained as of yesterday and had burned an estimated at 52 acres. Fire managers say structures are no longer threatened and evacuations have been lifted after firefighters worked through the night to secure containment lines in preparation for the high winds forecast for yesterday and today. According to NM Fire Info, burning debris caused the fire. Fire managers have been preparing for a potentially heavy wildfire season here and across the West, due to extreme drought conditions.
Feds grant school testing waiver
ICYMI, the US Department of Education last week granted New Mexico’s request for an accountability waiver for standardized tests, meaning that no students, schools or districts will be graded, rated or ranked based on this year’s standardized tests. “This waiver will allow New Mexico educators to get the student achievement data we need to guide accelerated learning programs without adding stressful consequences at the end of an already stressful school year,” Public Education Secretary Ryan Stewart said in a statement. “We are pleased that the US Department of Education was attentive and receptive to our state context and request for flexibility.” The federal government also waived a requirement to test 95% of students. Instead, students who have returned to in-person learning “will be encouraged but not required” to participate in spring assessments. Students in remote learning “will have the option of using locally designed assessments, the state’s formative assessment system or other local measures of academic progress,” according to a PED news release. Because of the waiver, the state will not be required to use 2020-2021 testing data to identify schools that need improvement; instead, schools so identified in the 2019-2020 school year will retain that status for another year.
Listen up
As you may have heard, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed legislation paving the way for recreational adult-use cannabis in the state. So now what? In a special episode of the Growing Forward podcast, hosts Andy Lyman and Megan Kamerick sat down to chat with the governor to discuss what lies ahead for this new industry and what exactly needs to be done to ensure its success.
Border politics
The Wall Street Journal juxtaposes two elected officials representing border states: US Rep. Yvette Herrell, R-NM, and US Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-TX, whose views embody the divergent views regarding border policy. Here in New Mexico, Herrell says the state’s border is “…too porous right now. Let’s shut our border down, let’s do it right.” Specifically, Herrell wants “Trump-era immigration restrictions…to be put back in place before she would be willing to talk about expediting the backlog of asylum cases and smoothing the path to legal status for some immigrants that many Democrats want. Earlier this month, she brought eight Republican colleagues to her district and nearby El Paso, Texas, to show them what she says is Mr. Biden’s border crisis.” Meanwhile, in Texas, Gonzalez says that Dreamers “or immigrants brought illegally to the country as children, deserve permanent legal status as should ‘people who’ve been here for decades working hard and have no record at all.’” The November election reified the tension over immigration policy, WSJ says, with Democratic candidates falling “short of their goals in many border areas” and now “raises the stakes for border lawmakers seeking re-election in 2022 as Republicans take aim at Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the House.”
Living art
The New York Times profiles 10 queer indigenous artists about one of their pieces, as well as their art practices overall. The artists include 27-year-old Eric-Paul Riege, based in Gallup, who discusses a performance of his, “dah ‘iistł’ǫ́ [loomz], weaving dance, (fig.1)” which occurred at the Sanitary Tortilla Factory in January 2018 (Santa Feans may also have caught Riege’s work at SITE Santa Fe in 2018 as part of its SITElines 2018 exhibitions: Casa tomada). The three-hour performance at the Sanitary Tortilla Factory, Riege tells the Times, “marked the beginning of how I’ve come to think of my entire practice, in which nothing is static—nothing lives on the wall—or is ever really finished. Instead, everything is unmade and then remade into new forms.” For instance, he says, “there are all these new sounds that the regalia sings to me. I’ll record them and that’ll become a score for another performance, and then the images of that subsequent performance will become a collage.” The artist says it’s “crucial” that the work “always be activated through my body in some way—everything from the regalia to the physical objects I make is either worn or carried.”
Twisting in the wind
Like yesterday, today looks to be mostly sunny, with a high near 74 degrees coupled with a breezy north wind 5 to 10 mph becoming southwest 15 to 25 mph in the morning and then possibly gusting as high as 35 mph.
Thanks for reading! The Word looks forward to reading Margaret Atwood’s new short story in the New Yorker.
