State delays easing COVID-19 restrictions (New Mexico)

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | June 19, 2020 | Colleen Heild

[CedarDave]

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s top medical official in the fight against COVID-19 said Friday state officials are putting off for at least two weeks a plan for greater reopening of businesses and other activities.

In recent days, state officials have reevaluated whether to take the next step in the gradual relaxing of some business restrictions. But New Mexico had a “major setback” in a surge of new virus cases recently, and the state’s intensive care beds “were more than 100% full,” said Dr. David Scrase, cabinet secretary for the state Human Services Department.

On June 8, New Mexico had been among 14 states that recorded their highest ever seven-day average of new coronavirus cases. And the state per capita has the lowest number of ICU beds in the country, making it vulnerable if an increase in seriously ill COVID-19 patients occurs, Scrase said.

“So we decided to go another two weeks,” Scrase said during a webinar update in which he fielded questions from the news media.

State officials on Friday announced 112 new cases and eight more deaths.

Scrase said there’s been some confusion about the governor’s public health order requiring masks.

“You might think that if you’re exercising … you don’t have to wear a mask.” But he said, that’s not correct in all cases.

He said he recently took a hike in the Sandias and noticed that 90% of hikers he encountered on the trail weren’t wearing face coverings.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Sounds like another Democratic governor who screwed things up. If the story is true she let all her hospitals get filled up so people won’t get the care they needed. If the stories wrong it means she gave out wrong information and is scaring the people in her state. In either case clearly she is screwing up the covid response 20.
Meanwhile in Virginia while our governor is way too harsh on us we’ve managed to mostly open up and still cut our cases in half. Although we’re still killing way too many seniors in nursing homes, which seems like the easiest thing for a good Governor to protect against

[Crusher138]

Weeks ago there were stories leaking out that our ICUs were empty. The Governor, in cahoots with the medical industry, decided to fill them with cases from the Navajo Reservation.

For those who may not know, the Navajo Reservations stretches across three states - New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.

One of our local talk radio guys started posting tracking information of incoming medical flights from Arizona, all the while the hospitals and the government were denying they were flying anyone in. There were even news reports in Arizona about the medical flights. When caught in the lie, they started to drive out-of-staters into New Mexico and THEN put them on Med flights to Albuquerque. In short order we filled up our ICU beds.

Now the cases in southern New Mexico are picking up (mostly in a prison down there) and there is nowhere for them to go.

The whole thing is FUBAR.