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COVID-19 by the numbers
On Friday, New Mexico health officials reported 1,463 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the statewide total to 282,742; the health department has designated 247,128 of those cases as recovered.
Bernalillo County had 373 new cases, followed by San Juan County with 216 and Doña Ana County with 212. Santa Fe County had 59 new cases.
The state also announced 12 additional deaths, eight of them recent, including the 173rd from Santa Fe County: a man in his 70s who had been hospitalized and had underlying conditions; there have now been 5,113 fatalities statewide. As of Friday, 460 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, 25 fewer than the day prior. Health officials are expected to provide a three-day update on cases, deaths and hospitalizations this afternoon.
The University of New Mexico says it is in the process of disenrolling 256 students who failed to comply with its COVID-19 vaccine mandate (which requires a vaccine, an approved exemption or weekly testing) by Friday’s deadline. As SFR reported, the Santa Fe Community College also recently announced a vaccine mandate for faculty, staff and students.
Currently, 82.8% of New Mexicans 18 years and older have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 72.8% are fully vaccinated. Among that age group, 12.6% have had a booster shot. In the 12-17-year-old age group, 62.7% people have had at least one dose and 54.6% are fully inoculated. In Santa Fe County, 93.3% people 18 and older have had at least one dose and 82.5% are fully vaccinated.
As vaccines roll out for children 5-11 in New Mexico and across the US, over the weekend, Sesame Street’s Big Bird, age 6, went on CNN to share his fears about getting vaccinated, and reported in afterward via Twitter that all was fine, sparking outrage from US Sen. Ted Cruz, R- Texas, and other conservatives, but a thank-you from the Fonz (there’s a sentence you don’t write every day).
New Mexicans can register for a COVID-19 vaccine here and check eligibility for a COVID-19 vaccine booster here. Parents can add dependents to their vaccine profiles here.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here.
Tension mounts over social studies curriculum
Proposed changes to New Mexico’s social studies curriculum include an emphasis on “major historical themes such as power, class conflict, struggle, geo-political impact, social justice, equity and diversity,” and “ensuring divergence from a singular Eurocentric cultural script ensuring equitable inclusion of accurate historical stories reflecting Indigenous, Hispano/Latino, Chicano, Mestizo, Genizaro, African American and other cultural perspectives.” In advance of a public hearing on Friday, Nov. 12, the Associated Press reports public officials have been receiving critical feedback from those opposing the updated standards. Some of those concerns come from educators concerned about the magnitude of the changes, while other criticism reflects a national conservative movement against so-called “critical race theory.” In New Mexico, the state Republican Party had asked the Public Education Department to extend the public comment period on the standards, and then publicly derided PED for making the hearing virtual versus in-person (a PED spokeswoman says the virtual hearing is for COVID-safety purposes). “PED’s Secretary wants to hide live input for what’s become an unpopular scholastic plan,” A state GOP news release reads. “This is unconscionable, undemocratic and un-American. The state has bluntly silenced the voice of parents and others to speak in person regarding this controversial plan.”
NM film crew: Sets increasingly unsafe
The Los Angeles Times talks to a dozen New Mexico film crew members about safety conditions here, both in the wake of the fatal Rust shooting last month, as well as in light of the state’s booming film production. As the Times notes, New Mexico had nearly 50 productions underway as of August, magnifying already intense working conditions, the workers say. “It’s getting worse and worse, faster and more dangerous,” Kim Trujillo, a costumer who recently worked on Netflix’s Messiah and USA’s The Biggest Loser, told the Times. “It’s not brain surgery, but that’s the level of pressure that we’re put under.” The story describes an environment in which Netflix and other large productions’ use of union members has made experienced film crew less available to independent projects. Moreover, they say, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees local chapter (who didn’t respond to the Times’ request for comment) can’t keep up with surging demands; lawmakers appear reluctant to monitor an increasingly lucrative industry here; and the state’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau doesn’t regulate workers’ commutes or working hours. Crew protests over commuting back to Albuquerque late at night preceded the Rust shooting.
Weigh in on cannabis equity
The state Cannabis Regulatory Advisory Committee is currently seeking feedback on the social and economic equity components of adult recreational cannabis via a public survey, as committee members develop a plan to promote participation in the industry by members of communities that have been disproportionately harmed by the drug war. The committee, which held its first meeting in early August, has had approximately three months to create recommendations on equity, which Chairwoman Emily Kaltenbach, senior director of criminal legal and policing reform for the Drug Policy Alliance, as well as its New Mexico director, tells SFR is “both not enough time and too much time” because “equity cannot wait.” Among other question topics, the survey addresses barriers to entry for business owners and workers; eligibility criteria for those applying for equity assistance; and potential strategies to address equity concerns. The Cannabis Control Division also will hold a public hearing Dec. 1 regarding new draft rules, including a provision that would require all cannabis businesses—except for micro-businesses—to enter into labor peace agreements as a condition of licensing.
Listen up
What might help counter rampant misinformation on social media? A big question, and one the Augmented Humanity podcast tackles this month. In the first episode on the topic, hosts Craig Goldsmith and Ellen Dorman speak with Arushi Saxena, the founder of the EkMinute project, a digital literacy campaign that promotes better forwarding behavior on WhatsApp and beyond, and a representative of the Responsible Tech movement.
Shop Native
In a nod to November’s Native American Heritage Month, House Beautiful highlights five Native American-designed home and decor lines, including the Indian Pueblo Store, owned and operated by New Mexico’s 19 Pueblo tribes and located in Albuquerque. “With over 50 featured artists, it can be hard to choose from the offerings,” House Beautiful notes, “but the online store is ideal for shoppers seeking clay pottery for statement vessels and vases.” For special guests, the magazine recommends work by Geraldine Sandia (Jemez Pueblo), specifically a wedding vase for newlyweds and blended families. “The highly sculptural Petroglyph collection by Ohkay Owingeh would make a sculptural centerpiece. No matter your taste or space, hand-etched pottery offers an unparalleled calming effect that exudes harmony with nature.” Indian Pueblo Store’s Instagram account is both a great spot to see highlighted wares, but also to learn about them, such as a recent post on beaded jewelry, which notes: “The beaded tradition is most closely associated with Santo Domingo Pueblo, known for creating beautiful shell and gemstone beads by hand. These beads are called ‘heishi,’ which means ‘shell’ in the Santo Domingo language Keres. Necklaces with similar bead styles have been found in the ancestral Puebloan sites Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde, and heishi may be the oldest form of jewelry in New Mexico.”
O’Keeffe behind the camera
Georgia O’Keeffe employed more than the paintbrush to capture how she saw the world: She also used a camera. A new show at The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston has just debuted what it characterizes as the first major exhibit of O’Keeffe’s photographs, named: Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer (through Jan. 17, 2022). The museum’s associate curator of photography, Lisa Volpe, tells the Texas Standard the show began, in part, after a conversation she had with Cody Hartley, director of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. Hartley, Volpe recounts, “...casually said to me one day ‘We have all of these photographs. We don’t know who they are by, but we think some of them are by O’Keeffe.’ And I was so intrigued. I read all of her letters. I plotted where she was geographically in the world, what she was thinking about, the appearance and deaths of her dogs, the remudding of her Adobe home, just so that I could start to say, ‘Yes, she’s at Glen Canyon at this moment. So, which one of these photographs of Glen Canyon are likely hers?’ What shows her vision? What isn’t the vision of her photographer friends around her? I looked at thousands of images to arrive at the 409 that we can now confidently attribute to O’Keeffe.” Volpe’s favorite in the show, she says, captures the wall outside O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu studio in winter: “You can see snow on the ground and this beautiful line of bright white snow on top of the wall. And there’s a kiva ladder leaning on the wall outside of her studio door and the shadow of the kiva ladder points your eye exactly to this pile of bones that’s sitting outside her studio. I love thinking about how she saw it perhaps and ran for her camera because the shadow was going to move. Or maybe she saw it and had to wait till the next day for that shadow to be in that perfect position again. It’s just so O’Keeffe.”
Darkness falls
Expect a sunny day in Santa Fe, with the National Weather Service forecasting a high near 65 degrees and north wind 5 to 10 mph becoming southwest in the afternoon. And expect the sun to set at about 5:02 pm, following the end of Daylight Savings.
Thanks for reading! Yesterday, The Word took a slow, trudging walk and then came home and watched highlights from the return of the New York City Marathon.
