Gallup Sun

SANTA FE — The New Mexico Department of Health, evolving with the demands of COVID-19, will begin administering an FDA-approved COVID test that involves swabbing the mouth to collect a saliva sample. The department started offering the test in Albuquerque at Balloon Fiesta Park Nov. 23.

NMDOH is collaborating with Curative, a research company in California that has created the first oral fluid test in the U. S. The saliva samples have been demonstrated to be at least as accurate as the more traditional nasopharyngeal test swab.

The tests will be self-collected — meaning they do not require a trained health care worker to administer — but trained personnel will be present when...

State relief for business, unemployed, more

SANTA FE — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced her plan to call the New Mexico Legislature into special session Nov. 24, to take up a relief package for New Mexicans who have been affected by the economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The governor’s priorities for the session – sometimes referred to as the governor’s “call” – include direct unemployment assistance, supplementing the payments to New Mexicans whose employment has been impacted by the economic fallout of the pandemic; grants to New Mexico businesses, making meaningful funding assistance as accessible as possible for business-owners whose operations...

SANTA FE — The state Human Services Department announced a new service Nov. 20.

New Mexican families can now access a portal to check their children’s eligibility for Pandemic-EBT benefits and update addresses

It can be reached through the Human Services Department’s online tool Yes NM (https://www.yes.state.nm.us/yesnm/home/index). The link has also been posted on the Public Education Department website.

Registration is not required to access the site, but the following information will be required to check a student’s eligibility for P-EBT benefits:

Student school identification number (assigned to student by school; if unsure of student ID number contact your students’...

Week ending Friday, November 20, 2020

Superbolts

Scientists have for the first time documented how often a rare breed of extreme lightning bolts can occur in the skies above Earth and how bright they are. These “superbolts” can be 1,000 times brighter and stretch hundreds of miles farther than their more common counterparts. Writing in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Los Alamos researchers say roughly one-third of 1%, or 1 in every 300 lightning strikes, are superbolts. Recent research finds that these extreme flashes occur in rare, positively charged cloud-to-ground events rather than the more common negatively charged...