New Mexico is now actively recruiting nurses from Canada. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced federal approval was given to take that step as well as activating 750 National Guard soldiers. The federal approval means the state will be reimbursed for the activation.
But personnel alone cannot overcome the crisis. That’s why the state is working to ensure more social distancing takes place. The numbers show the urgency of that effort.
According to state projections, New Mexico will need 2,175 intensive care unit beds at the state’s peak of infections, which could come in late April or early May. But the maximum capacity at state hospitals is just 589 ICU beds, 27 percent of what’s needed.
Lujan Grisham also addressed the difficulty getting the needed equipment. Unless more resources are secured, the state projects a shortage of 1,281 general hospital beds and 1,004 ventilators.
“It is true that the state by state effort to go after supplies and equipment to treat COVID-19 patients is incredibly competitive. Frankly, it is a system that is not working for anyone…anywhere. And the bulk of our time, in addition to looking at the data, reminding people about mitigation strategies, doing what I’m now calling community containment strategies, so that’s why we’re focusing in areas where we’ve seen spread in nursing homes, some tribal communities and surrounding counties. We want to make sure that we’re dealing with those as effectively as possible and to support those communities in the most meaningful way possible,” said Lujan Grisham.
While the state hopes to get more help from the federal government, the city of Las Cruces is also working on the crisis, allocating $1,072,500 for everything from meals and staffing to online learning for Las Cruces Public Schools.
But city councilor Tessa Abeyta-Stuve says Las Cruces must do more to help increase medical capacity, including the ability to test for COVID-19 without driving test kits to Santa Fe.
“I do think we need to consider what we might need as far as preparations for what’s being called our surge potential for seeing patients and what we might need to be doing to protect our community and help with the medical community for any sort of resources that they might need. And looking in Las Cruces, if we are still going to have to continue to drive our testing kits up to Santa Fe, what does it look like to see what we need to make sure we can test here in Las Cruces. What type of equipment is necessary here, so that we can get those faster results? We know that when the time comes, there’s going to be a lot of activity, and if we can help as much as possible in our own city, we will have better success, and better results for our patients,” said Abeyta-Stuve.
In addition to medical needs, the business community says data will be needed to determine the long-term effects on other firms. The city council allocated $7,500 for an initial economic study. Davin Lopez is President and CEO of the Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance. He told the council businesses need to understand if some of the recent changes could be permanent.
“For communities to respond, we’re going to need to understand what this looks like, the after-effect it’s going to look like. And right now, it’s hard for anyone to predict what that might mean. What we do know is that companies are shifting. And we’re seeing local companies shift their business models as well. How long this pandemic goes on will probably determine are these permanent shifts or not. And culturally speaking among consumers, how are we going to be changing our habits that local entrepreneurs need to adapt to? Let me give you an example. Obviously, curbside (pickup of food in the parking lots of restaurants) is a big change. That may be something permanent. Later on, does that affect the real estate of the restaurant if they’re doing more of their business doing curbside? Do people want to have more social distance within a restaurant itself? Does that change their footprint? Construction, walls, whatever needs to be put up, based on the length of this behavior. The other thing that we know is going to come out of this is the need for more telework. We see that happening already. We see some companies being able to shift to that. Other companies cannot,” said Lopez.
Looking long-term, many councilors expressed the need to allocate more funding to mitigate the pain for families and institutions as more cases are diagnosed. Councilor Gabe Vasquez says the initial allocation of a little more than a million dollars should only be a start.
“These are small amounts. And I think this is kind of like putting a band-aid on a broken leg at this point. We need to do more. I feel like we work for the people of this city and I think the people are really hurting. I don’t see this as our money, as the city’s money. I really see this as the people’s money,” said Vasquez.
While funding will help, state officials say the most important message is to reduce the spread of COVID-19. And on that front, this is some hope. State officials say initially, the number of New Mexico cases was doubling about every two days. That mirrored New York’s rate, where hospitals are exceeding capacity. But as of Friday, New Mexico was doing better, with cases doubling about every four days.