Morning-Word-Covid
COVID-19 by the numbers
State health officials yesterday reported 187 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the statewide total so far to 195,783. Bernalillo County had 69 new cases, followed by San Juan County with 32. Santa Fe County had the third highest number of new cases: 20—15 of which were in the Southside 87507 ZIP code, which ranked first yesterday for the ZIP code with the most new cases in the state.
The state also announced 10 additional deaths from Bernalillo and Doña Ana counties; there have now been 4,020 fatalities. As of yesterday, 124 people were hospitalized with COVID-19.
Currently, 57% of New Mexicans have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 39.4% are fully vaccinated. In Santa Fe County, 62.1% have had at least one dose and 39.5% are fully inoculated. Health Secretary Dr. Tracie Collins said during yesterday’s COVID-19 update that the state received 104,440 COVID-19 vaccines this week, and that supply is now meeting demand. The health department hopes to let all New Mexicans 16 years and older start self-scheduling their vaccines in the next week or so, she said. Currently, anyone 40 years and older can do so, and everyone can self-schedule their booster shots.
Collins also emphasized that vaccines are free and no government identification is required to receive them. “Vaccine sites are safe,” Collins said. “and [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is required to stay away from vaccine sites, unless there are extenuating circumstances.”
Santa Fe County in partnership with the Aging and Long Term Services Department, Albertsons and other agencies will be holding a drive-through vaccine event from 9 am to 5 pm this Friday, April 23 at the county fairgrounds. The event is by appointment so participants will need to register with the state to receive an appointment time.
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.
Santa Fe County remains turquoise, county metrics under review
Though Santa Fe County’s case count rose yesterday, it met the state’s case and test positivity rate benchmarks over the last two weeks and remains turquoise under New Mexico’s public health law and red-to-green framework. Nine counties, however, regressed from green to yellow and Colfax County moved back to red, and is now the only county in the most restrictive category. Five counties advanced to less restrictive levels: Cibola, Guadalupe, Hidalgo, Otero and San Miguel. Overall, 14 New Mexico counties are now turquoise, three are green, 15 are yellow and one is red. During yesterday’s COVID-19 update, Human Services Secretary Dr. David Scrase said he was “disappointed” to see some counties regressing, but remained optimistic that “we will be an almost completely green and turquoise state by the end of May at the latest.” Scrase also previewed changes officials are considering for the benchmarks used to evaluate the counties, as well as the statewide gating criteria. These include reconsidering the 5% test positivity rate, as test positivity rates are expected to rise as COVID-19 testing declines (fully vaccinated people are not recommended for COVID-19 testing if they are asymptomatic); possibly increasing the rolling daily case target from 168; likely removing targets of Personal Protective Equipment from the statewide gating criteria; incorporating county-level vaccination rates; and potentially lengthening the evaluation period for turquoise counties.”I promise I’ll have some sort of definitive new idea of what this is going to look like for all of you in two weeks,” Scrase said. “The one last thing I want to say about the revisions to red-yellow-green, they cannot make things worse for any county, they can only help.”
Let there be [appropriate levels of] light
The City of Santa Fe has apparently seen the light when it comes to withholding the names of the 12 residents serving on a committee for its streetlight conversion project. Public Works Director Regina Wheeler had agreed to keep their names anonymous, saying members were concerned about “aggressive” correspondence from the public. City Council members and the public, however, pushed back at the secrecy, which followed a decision earlier this year to close off some of its Community Health and Safety Task Force meetings (a decision made during a national week devoted to government transparency, no less). Wheeler told the Santa Fe New Mexican members were informed yesterday their names would become public and given the opportunity to resign: “We want people to be positive about this public engagement process and we want them to be happy that we are engaging people in gathering feedback and not to have it shadowed by the controversy of whether the names are public or not,” Wheeler told the New Mexican. As for the non-metaphoric lights, concerns about the streetlight conversion come amid growing awareness about light pollution. Cities across the US have been shifting to LED in increasing numbers, particularly over the last five years, with most adopting public processes along the way (here’s an interesting story from when Philadelphia converted its lighting). Back in Santa Fe, city staff will be available at several test sites from from 8 to 9:30 pm this Friday where the public can view the lights. More details here.
Building blocks
Santa Fe Public Schools next superintendent, Larry Chavez, intends to build “build on the foundation” set by retiring Superintendent Veronica García, he tells SFR in an interview this week. Hired by the school board last weekend for a $150,000 one-year contract, Chavez comes from a family of educators in New Mexico and holds a master’s degree in special education from Highlands University. “We have a lot of great people in the district,” Chavez says. “And I think it’s about continuing to cultivate what they do and providing the support for them to be successful. Ultimately, that would result in everyone being successful.” Chavez acknowledges the pandemic and its concomitant year of online learning left students across the board facing a learning gap: “It goes from our students who excel to our students who struggle—the learning gaps are there. I think we have to be able to acknowledge them and identify them and make sure that we’re providing those opportunities next year, to try to close them in.” Ensuring families continue to have learning options ranks as a priority, he notes. “We still may have families and students who are afraid of returning to school or may be concerned that in-person learning is not for them. On the other hand, we have students who have excelled in online learning. And so we need to be able to provide that type of option for our parents to really explore for their students to attend Santa Fe Public Schools next year.”
Happy Earth Day
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is scheduled to participate in President Joe Biden’s Leaders Summit on Climate, scheduled to start at 10:30 am MST today. The White House’s virtual event will include world leaders along with activists, coalition members, and representatives from cities, states and Indigenous communities. According to the governor’s office, Lujan Grisham was the only American governor invited. She is scheduled to participate in a panel discussion hosted by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, titled Climate Action at All Levels, highlighting “the critical efforts of subnational and non-state actors…that are contributing to green recovery and working closely with national governments to advance climate ambition and resilience on the ground.” Other panelists include: Sinéia B. do Vale, member, Indigenous Council of Roraima, Brazil; New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell; Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, France; Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, president of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad; Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike; Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians; and Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum. Find the full schedule here and watch the event here.
Listen up
The Center for Contemporary Arts hosts an Earth Day panel discussion at 7 pm tonight on the award-winning documentary Seeding Change, which considers how businesses that consider their social, environmental and financial impacts, aka the “triple bottom line,” can help address some of today’s most challenging issues, such as climate change. Panelists include R. Charlie Shultz, lead faculty at Santa Fe Community College’s Controlled Environment Agriculture, School of Trades, Technology, Sustainability and Professional Studies; Juliana Ciano, program director for Reunity Resources; and local permaculture designer Nate Downey, author of Harvest the Rain. The event is $12; register here.
Earth Day in the Railyard
Art Park 21 opens its second biennial juried exhibition of outdoor eco-centric artworks today, for Earth Day, in partnership with the Railyard Park Conservancy and Railyard Art Project. The Urban Ecologies project includes several temporary outdoor interdisciplinary eco-art installations from regional artists with relevance to New Mexico’s environment. For example, the piece “All Felled” is intended to reflect “the diaspora of the Douglas fir harvested from Jicarita Peak near Peñasco, NM, at the beginning of the 20th century to supply ties to the AT&SF Railroad” with chalked text using a “solar-powered glow” through collaborative efforts with New Mexico schoolchildren. “Infinite Green” is a sculptural installation created with repurposed artificial grass and a reclaimed push lawn mower. “INDUSTRY” is a multi-media installation incorporates coding, arduinos, LEDs and an LCD monitor to produce an illusion of a 3-D sphere inside a seemingly unaltered rusty water tank. The show will continue through Sept. 22, with a meet-the-artist event from 10 am to 2 pm this Saturday, April 23 (see artists, projects and map here).
Culture Dept. celebrates Earth Day
The state Department of Cultural Affairs is spotlighting a variety of resources and programs in conjunction with Earth Day, including a video on how to make seed balls, which you can find on the Los Luceros Historic Site Facebook page (which also features multiple posts and instructional videos related to the annual event centered on environmental protection and preservation). And on the New Mexico Historic Sites Facebook page on April 24, you can take a virtual hike at Coronado Historic Site, walking through the ancient village of Kuaua and the trails adjacent to the Rio Grande. Other options include “Herd at the Farm & Ranch,” a bi-monthly video interview series on the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum’s Facebook page, which features people connected to the museum. The latest episode, posting today, features longtime volunteer Bob Distlehorst, who’ll talk about growing up on a farm in Illinois and some of the projects he’s been involved with at the Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum. And if you’d like to head beyond Earth, The Astronomy Club at the New Mexico Museum of Space History has posted a video on the planets beyond our solar system, how they are discovered, and what it means for the future of mankind.
On the road again
Texas Monthly highlights New Mexico’s Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway as part of its guide on road trips for Texans. The Turquoise Trail “offers a lot more than just the way to Santa Fe,” the magazine writes (yay?). Author Stephanie Noll knew she’d marry her husband when he said he’d visit New Mexico with her and, indeed, the pair spent a decade road-tripping here before relocating to Chamisal, near Taos. But we digress. The Turquoise Trail, Noll writes, offers myriad laudable pit stops, including off-the-grid glamping at the Shanti Community; Madrid’s Jezebel Gallery and Soda Fountain; and, of course, the Mine Shaft Tavern, which apparently reminded Noll’s son of South Congress (which is actually in Texas—Austin to be precise). And that ain’t the half of it: “Long before moving to New Mexico, I felt I understood the meaning behind the state’s tourism campaign ‘New Mexico True,’” Noll concludes. “Sure, there are good reasons for tourists, especially Texans, to flock here for world-class skiing in Taos or gallery-hopping in Santa Fe. But the greatest gift this place has to offer is to become a part of the landscape.”
Ah, cruel April
Temps should be a little warmer today, with a high near 67 degrees. But there will also be wind: southeast wind 10 to 15 mph becoming west 15 to 20 mph in the afternoon. Hold onto your hats: Winds could gust as high as 30 mph.
Thanks for reading! The Word had intended to live the rest of her life without thinking about NFTs, but, alas, it was not meant to be. Grist Magazine’s “Ask Umbra” column does a solid job explaining NFTs’ impact on art and the earth.
