In a paradoxical update from the Governor yesterday afternoon, New Mexico received both good and bad Covid-19 news.
The Good: New Mexico’s ‘two week reset’ lockdown was successful at driving down infection numbers according to Governor Michele Lujan Grisham. “We decreased from a 24 percent positivity rate to a 13 percent positivity rate,” she said. “We are aiming for about a statewide 5 percent positivity rate, so you can see we have a long way to go, but this is exactly what we were hoping and aiming for.” In other good news, New Mexico is slated to receive it’s first delivery of Covid-19 vaccines sometime next week. The initial does will most likely go to immunizing medical professionals on the front lines of combatting the virus.
The Governor also indicated that several counties’ infection rates were trending downward, indicating those counties might be able to move up to the yellow bracket for reopening businesses sometime next week. “The best Christmas gift we can give New Mexico’s economy” is for more residents to be tested, the governor said.
The Bad: Thursday’s glimmer of good news came hours after the state Department of Health issued an emergency order prohibiting all hospital acute care facilities in New Mexico from performing nonessential surgeries through Jan. 4. The state also issued an emergency order relating to crisis care standards, which would allow hospitals to begin rationing care based on the severity of a patient’s symptoms and a person’s chances of survival with interventions. The order outlines the steps necessary to protect health care providers from liability during the public health crisis.
The order temporarily limiting surgeries, effective Friday, is in response “to the ongoing public health crisis in New Mexico and resulting unsustainable strain on health care providers and hospitals” as a result of the pandemic, the Health Department said. Nonessential surgeries are defined in the order as procedures that can be delayed for three months without “undue risk” to a patient’s health. Click HERE to read more.