New Mexico’s tiered restrictions map released on Dec. 2, 2020, shows all but one county in the state at the most restrictive level. (Source: NMDOH)
SANTA FE — New Mexico launched its new county-level public health restrictions Wednesday with just one community — San Miguel County, home to Las Vegas — reaching the tier that allows indoor restaurant dining.
Los Alamos was close, but ended up in the red level, along with the rest of the state.
Even in the red, however, New Mexicans will see some relaxed rules. Ski areas, golf courses, gyms, salons and most businesses can operate at 25% capacity, and restaurants can allow outdoor dining, also at partial capacity.
But San Miguel County — a large, mostly rural county east of Santa Fe — was cleared for the yellow tier, the next step up in New Mexico’s red-to-green system. Restaurants in the county can offer indoor dining at 25% capacity.
The move to yellow comes after Las Vegas — the county seat — confronted the virus with a 10 p.m. curfew designed to encourage people to stay home. The city also adopted a mask mandate before the state as a whole.
Las Vegas Mayor Louie Trujillo said the city and county governments have worked together to enforce public health rules and promote testing.
“We were very aggressive,” Trujillo said in an interview.
To move out of the red, a county must reach at least one of two standards — either a COVID-19 test positivity rate of 5% or less, or fewer than eight new cases a day per 100,000 people.
Reaching both targets puts a county in the green. Reaching just one is enough to move into yellow.
San Miguel County hit the 5% positivity rate on the nose.
Wednesday marked the first day of the new three-tiered system. It’s a shift from the statewide approach Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration stuck with earlier in the pandemic.
Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, said this week that the county-level system provides an incentive for local leaders and their communities to increase testing and curb the spread of the virus. They could reopen more of their economy when they hit the statistical targets rather than having to wait for the relaxation of statewide rules.
In a written statement, Lujan Grisham recognized San Miguel County as an example of how local leaders can help limit the spread of COVID-19.
“This virus can indeed be beaten back through our day-to-day decisions and with assistance and leadership at the local level,” she said. The “state’s restrictions and guidelines are merely the floor, not the ceiling, of what local communities can do to keep New Mexicans safe.”
The state’s color-coded map will be updated every other Wednesday.
Republican leaders and other critics say the statistical benchmarks required to move out of the red level are too strict and could take months for counties to meet.
Before Wednesday’s map update, Los Alamos was set to be the only county to reach the yellow tier, based on data from a two-week period in November. But it slipped out of compliance when more recent data was calculated.
San Miguel County, by contrast, reached the yellow tier after earlier data showed it likely to start in the red.
Here’s a look at where some communities stand:
— San Miguel County hit the 5% positivity rate exactly in the final two weeks of November, allowing to it to be designated yellow.
— Los Alamos was at 6%.
— Bernalillo County, New Mexico’s largest county, had a positivity rate at 19% and 103 cases per 100,000 people.
— Santa Fe County is slightly closer, at 16% and 90 cases.
— Besides Los Alamos, at least two counties have positivity rates at 10% or less. Grant County, which includes Silver City, is at 8%, and Mora County is at 10%.
Statewide, about 18% of New Mexico’s coronavirus tests come back positive, and there are about 79 new cases a day per 100,000 population.
The Link LonkDecember 03, 2020 at 03:09AM
https://www.abqjournal.com/1522902/nm-sets-new-red-to-green-map-with-surprise-county-in-yellow.html
NM sets new ‘red-to-green’ map with surprise county in ‘yellow’ - Albuquerque Journal
https://news.google.com/search?q=Red&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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