COVID-19 by the numbers
New Mexico health officials yesterday reported 1,816 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the statewide total so far to 124,357. Of those, the health department has designated 49,609 as recovered. Bernalillo County had 569 new cases, followed by San Juan County with 151 and McKinley County with 109. Santa Fe County had 94 new cases.
The state also announced 43 additional deaths, the second highest single day for fatalities, including two from Santa Fe County, both residents of the Sierra Vista Retirement Community facility: a female in her 80s with underlying conditions, and a man in his 80s with underlying conditions. There have now been 55 deaths in Santa Fe County and 2,049 statewide. As of yesterday, 838 people were hospitalized with COVID-19.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other state officials will provide a weekly COVID-19 update today at 3 pm, which will stream live on the governor's Facebook page, as well as on SFR's website.
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.
In the red
All 33 New Mexico counties emerged in the red category of the state's new red-to-green COVID-19 framework yesterday. The criteria includes a daily per-capita case rate of eight or less per 100,000 population and a test positivity rate of 5% or less. Counties meeting one criteria can move to yellow, which expands various restrictions, such as capacity limits for businesses and ability to have indoor dining. Counties must meet both criteria to move to green, which has even more expanded opportunities. The state will be updating the map indicating counties' status every other Wednesday, with the next update scheduled for Dec. 30. Most counties made progress over the last two weeks in both categories, including Santa Fe County, which now has a test positivity rate of 10.10% and a daily per-capita case rate of 59 per 100,000, down from 15.5% and 90 per 100,000 residents. While all counties will be at the highest level of restrictions for at least two weeks, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham yesterday modified the public health order to allow for slightly increased capacity inside essential retail spaces, such as grocery stores, to minimize people standing outside on lines in the cold.
Vaccinations continue
Yesterday was the third and final day for the state of New Mexico's distribution of its 17,550 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, with Presbyterian Medical receiving 3,900 doses and University of New Mexico Hospital receiving 2,925, according to Matt Nerzig, a spokesman in the governor's office. In addition, Acoma Pueblo, which received 150 doses, and Laguna Pueblo, which received 200, both vaccinated community members yesterday and will do so again on Friday. Picuris Pueblo, which received 50 doses, plans to vaccinate on Dec. 22. Acoma, Laguna and Picuris all opted to receive their vaccine doses from the state rather than Indian Health Services. Acoma Pueblo Gov. Brian Vallo tells SFR his pueblo chose to work with the state following IHS' decision last month to end much of the health care service provided at Acoma-Canoncito-Laguna Service Unit. Vallo says he was concerned about the facility having the staff to accept and store the vaccine, as well as administer it, given the huge staff cuts. Acoma Pueblo has been on lockdown since April. While work remains to be done to fight the pandemic, Vallo says the vaccine's arrival brought relief: "I'm really grateful," he says, "and I pray for the best outcomes of the vaccine and that it will help to change our current situation across the world."
Off the charts
A proposed committee intended to help create unity and reconciliation in the wake of the Oct. 12 dismantling of the obelisk on the Plaza will have to wait for a vote a little longer as the Santa Fe City Council remains neither united nor reconciled on said proposal. The council last night postponed until Jan. 13 a vote on the so-called Cultures, Histories, Art, Reconciliation and Truth committee (CHART) after the resolution's sponsors significantly revised the proposal and released the new idea the night prior. Mayor Alan Webber and City Councilors Roman "Tiger" Abeyta, Carol Romero-Wirth and Chris Rivera announced on Tuesday proposed changes that eliminated appointed positions for the committee and instead modeled Santa Fe's initiative on an Albuquerque project that solicits public opinion through a variety of means. However, several council members said the proposal itself also needed public opinion and should have been first aired by other city committees. "It just does not allow for active dialogue to take place," City Councilor Michael Garcia said, describing himself as "flabbergasted" that sponsors had tried to put forward a significantly revised proposal for a vote without public input.
Philanthropist donates millions to NM orgs
The Institute of American Indian Arts was one of seven New Mexico organizations that received donations from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. IAIA announced Scott's $5 million donation this week in a news release that said the school would use the money to increase financial and technical assistance to students struggling to continue their studies during the pandemic, and also look at endowing scholarships; launching the IAIA Research Center for Contemporary Native Arts; and building capacity to offer graduate programs in Studio Arts and Museum Studies. "This generous gift will be truly transformational for the college," IAIA President Dr. Robert Martin (Cherokee) said. In a Medium post on the donations, Scott said her team of advisors used a "data-driven approach to identifying organizations with strong leadership teams and results, with special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital." Ultimately, Scott donated $4.2 billion over the last four months to 384 organizations across 50 states. In addition to IAIA in New Mexico, she gave $10 million to United Way of Central New Mexico; $750,000 to Meals on Wheels of Albuquerque; and unknown amounts to Goodwill Industries of New Mexico; Roadrunner Food Bank; Navajo and Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief; and Navajo Technical University in Crownpoint.
Listen up
The Santa Fe Art Institute Tilt podcast continues its nine-part Unsettled series examining Santa Fe and New Mexico's past through through the lens of historical conquest and colonialist structures' impact on contemporary crises. Part 2, "You're Not From Here," delves further into the The Soldiers' Monument's (aka Plaza obelisk) arrival in Santa Fe 1868, asking the question: "Is it even from here?" Guests include: Porter Swentzell, Artemisio Romero y Carver and Heidi Brandow.
Check it out
SFR continues its Bring a Friend video series today at 5:30 pm on YouTube with a discussion on "Leaning into the Arts in Times of Crisis," hosted by Culture Editor Alex De Vore with guest Tigre Bailando from Earthseed Black Arts Alliance. The series is free (past events focused on schools, teens, nonprofits and more), but anyone who donates to Friends of the Reporter during and immediately after the events will be entered into a weekly drawing for $50 worth of food and beverages at Second Street Brewery.
Pocket museum
The IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts this week launched the MoCNA app, an online portal through which users can engage with the entirety of the museum's current exhibitions. Senior Manager of Museum Education Winoka Yepa (Diné) tells SFR she worked with Cuseum, a museum-focused mobile app developer, and then spent several months herself embedding all the content. She envisions more videos, audio tours, potential artist talks and even a catalog of lectures, speeches and workshops. Having previously developed an app for the Navajo language, Yepa says she knows "how effective they are, how amazing they are, especially during these times when people can't travel to the museum. Why not include everything?"
Burroughs in New Mexico
Writer Ken Layne unearths the geographical and historical events that led J. Robert Oppenheimer to New Mexico ("My two great loves are physics and New Mexico," he once wrote) and, subsequently, beat author William S. Burroughs to the Los Alamos Ranch School. As Layne tells it in "That Time William S. Burroughs Fled a Ranch School in New Mexico," both Burroughs and his older brother Mortimer attended summer camp at the school from 1925 through 1927, and then 16-year-old William was sent there as a full-time student partially because of his sinus problems. "Burroughs begged to come home late in his second year, and later wrote that he loathed the Ranch School's dull chores, cruel classmates, and a headmaster who enjoyed making the students strip naked for him." Nonetheless, Layne notes, "a fantastic version of this Old West-themed all-male school of horseback-riding junior cowboys" appears in the later fiction as a "Burroughsian ideal of a perfect society, out of doors and out of control's reach."
Break out the sunscreen
Today will be mostly sunny with a high near 41 degrees and north wind 5 to 15 mph becoming southwest in the afternoon.
Thanks for reading! The Word plans to spend some time today watching the newly born gray seal pups on the Gray Seal Pupping Cam at Seal Island, Maine. Catch 'em while you can: They are very cute!
