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Morning Word
COVID-19 by the numbers
New Mexico health officials yesterday reported 264 new COVID-19 cases over the three-day period of June 19-21, bringing the statewide total so far to 204,961. The health department has designated 193,574 of those cases as recovered. Bernalillo County had 55 new cases, followed by Lea County with 44 and Curry County with 32. Santa Fe County had 11 new cases
The state also announced 10 additional deaths—nine of them recent— from 10 different counties, ranging in age from 30s to 80s. There have now been 4,326 total fatalities. As of yesterday, 82 people were hospitalized with COVID-19.
Currently, 68.4% of New Mexicans have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 59.8% are fully vaccinated—more than a million residents. In Santa Fe County, 77.4% have had at least one dose and 68.2% are fully inoculated.
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.
India Palace attack remains unsolved
It’s been a year since unknown attackers vandalized and plastered downtown India Palace with racist graffiti, causing thousands of dollars of damage and sparking waves of support and concern from its loyal customers. The business’ manager says the restaurant hopes to re-open soon—COVID delayed its overseas orders for tables and chairs—and in the meantime serves take-out orders from its rebuilt kitchen. As for the case, which was classified as a hate crime, India Palace Director of Operations Cameron Brown says Santa Fe Police—which have had assistance from the FBI and the Attorney General’s office—haven’t provided any updates. “Honestly, it doesn’t feel right because at the end of the day, we should have some type of update, and it’s been over a year,” Brown tells the Santa Fe New Mexican. “We’re just left in the dark like everyone else.” Santa Fe Police Deputy Chief Paul Joye, however, says the case remains active: “We have done interviews,” Joye said. “We’ve been following up on leads. We’ve gotten a few throughout the year that we’ve investigated and followed up on.”
Growing pains
Population growth or the lack thereof will play key roles in upcoming redistricting for New Mexico’s congressional and legislative seats. Using 2020 census estimates, the Albuquerque Journal examines how the growth of larger urban areas versus the decline of rural ones could reshape districts, although the specific lay of the land won’t emerge until detailed census information becomes available this summer. San Juan County’s population appears to have shrunk the most, but other rural counties also declined, including Grant, San Miguel, Rio Arriba and Colfax counties. Sandoval County had the largest growth in population, approximately 13%, but the counties that include the cities of Albuquerque, Rio Rancho and Santa Fe also had some of the biggest gains, as did Doña Ana County, which grew faster than the state as a whole.
Off the bat
One might think a coronavirus pandemic provided enough incentive to avoid sick, let alone, dead bats but, if not, here’s more fodder: Bats can carry rabies. So warns the state health department, which yesterday issued an advisory regarding increasing reports of people encountering bats in the state. High temperatures and lack of water can cause bats to fall from their daytime perches and, in response to extreme heat, “display unusual behavior.” Don’t try to help them, Health Secretary Dr. Tracie Collins advises. “You might think you’re doing the kind thing by trying to help an animal,” Collins says in a news release, “but if that animal bites or scratches you, you could put yourself at risk for rabies. Dead animals can also pose risk for rabies if improperly handled.” Although most bats don’t carry rabies, so far this year two bats from Torrance County have tested positive for rabies and, last year, nine bats tested positive for rabies in Bernalillo, Colfax, Doña Ana, Luna, Socorro and Valencia counties. More info on rabies and tips for avoiding contracting the disease available here.
Listen up
Food expert and award-winning cookbook author Cheryl Alters Jamison always serves up plenty of food for thought in her weekly radio program, “Heating it Up,” (3 pm, Saturdays on KTRC, 1260 AM, 103.7 FM). For her Juneteenth show, Jamison provides a list of Black-owned Santa Fe and Albuquerque restaurants, along with an interview with new Santa Fe resident historian/journalist and prohibition expert Garrett Peck, who discusses, among other topics, whether Santa Fe ever had a prohibition.
Olympic dreams
Come July, athletes from around the world will compete in the postponed Tokyo Olympics. Santa Fe’s own Aliphine Tuliamuk, who won the US Olympic Marathon Trials, will be among them. Outside magazine profiles Tuliamuk’s journey to become the elite athlete she is today, a story that began in Posoy, a village in western Kenya. “My village, it was a beautiful life,” Tuliamuk says. “I did know that there was a different world out there, but I was very happy with what I had.” She ran everywhere and soon a relative saw her potential to run competitively. In the US, despite a steady career of achievements, Tuliamuk did not receive the coverage and attention other athletes garnered. After the Olympic trials, she began to see she had joined “a long line of Black athletes who were overlooked or underexposed,” while also carrying representation as an immigrant, even after winning the trials as an American citizen. Still, Tuliamuk didn’t dwell on those perceptions, but continued pursuing all of her dreams and took advantage of the year-long Olympic delay to have her daughter with her fiancee Tim Gannon. “Becoming an Olympian was Aliphine’s way of showing children that their dreams were possible, that they had the power to choose who they would become,” the story notes. “It was always about that, for the Black girls in America and for the ones back in Kenya. But things are more personal now. So she runs—for all those who didn’t make it this far, for those who can’t. For the ones like Zoe, who will inhabit this world after her career is finished.”
Tweets from outer-space
New Mexico’s Economic Development Department yesterday announced nine companies receiving a total of more than $1 million in Job Training Incentive Program funds this month—Santa Fe-based Solstar Space Company among them. Solstar Space received $14,560 for one hourly employee to work at what is described as “the world’s first in-flight internet of things service provider for astronauts and space.” According to a news release, Solstar has already successfully demonstrated its technology on three suborbital flights: two flights with Blue Origin and one from Spaceport America. The company’s website says it sent the first commercial Tweet from space in 2018 and that’s just the jump-off for its internet/space plans: “Imagine the first phone call during a commercial flight, the first selfie sent from the Kármán line, and the first instant results from payloads on-board a commercial spacecraft. Solstar Space Company can make that happen.”
Gimme swelter
If yesterday’s lack of rain sparked an existential crisis disappointed, not to worry: Today’s forecast calls for zero chance of precipitation and, thus, zero chance for dashed hopes. It will be sunny with a high near 90 degrees and southeast wind 5 to 15 mph becoming west in the afternoon. Looking ahead, chances for storms return Wednesday night and continue through the rest of the week.
Thanks for reading! The Word is working her way through all the obituaries written about Janet Malcolm, one of her favorite and most influential writers (this one from the Guardian is the favorite so far...or maybe this one from the New Republic...definitely the New Yorker tribute shouldn’t be missed).
