New Mexico Coronavirus Update:  March 16

New Mexico 

The state is still not testing for coronavirus at a level needed to estimate how many persons are infected here, a baseline essential for assessing the spread of the disease as it cuts its swath across New Mexico.  As of this morning, the NM Dept. of Health (click here) shows only 583 persons have been tested.  This means that about 336 were tested in the last two days, but this is not near enough of a sample to understand the true extent of the presence of the virus in the state.  There are now 17 cases of coronavirus detected in the state.  We have no idea how many persons actually have the disease, because we only started highly limited testing in the past few days.  Hopefully, testing on a large scale is now taking place, and we should be informed in the next few days of how seriously NM has become infected. According to many reliable sources the amount of testing being conducted right now will be a major determinant of how many people will die of the disease or be permanently injured.  There are a lot of other factors that will go into the death toll, but right now this one is the most critical.  We need to ramp up for the spike in patients that will take place, perhaps as early as the next two or three weeks, and this includes more doctors, nurses, hospital beds, ventilators, etc.  But right this minute we need more testing, while others ramp up for the patients to come.

Having said this, New Mexico appears to be ahead of El Paso and Juárez in testing.  Juárez newspapers and government officials are still saying or insinuating that the disease is not present in the city.  This is almost certainly false.  Local newspapers report only a miniscule number of tests (possibly only 6 cases as of yesterday), all of them negative.  Yesterday the Feria del Mole took place in the Central Park, but from the pictures of empty spaces in supermarkets for toilet paper, it looks like juarenses are beginning to catch on to the need for social isolation, regardless of what their politicians tell them.  And in El Paso Dee Margo held a press conference to confirm two cases so far detected in El Paso, without revealing how much testing is going on in that city.  Since they have a CDC lab, hopefully, a lot of testing is going on.  And a photo in the El Paso Times this morning (click here) shows the mayor at the press conference with what looks like about a dozen people in proximity surrounding him, a lot closer than 6 ft. from each other.  Not a good sign to convey to 700,000 elpasoans who need to understand what is happening.

With urban populations of 2 million persons living just 40-60 miles from Las Cruces, and well over $100 billion in commerce crossing our borders each year via rail and truck, our greatest vulnerability to the spread of coronavirus right now, is likely to come from the South, not from other areas of New Mexico, unless things are really really bad in Albuquerque.  We just don't know.