Non-essential businesses, nonprofits to close in-person services for two weeks

By Dominic Aragon

Sun Correspondent

SANTA FE — During her Friday press conference, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham laid out a plan to close certain businesses for two weeks starting Nov. 16.

The governor said businesses deemed “non-essential,” and nonprofits, will be required to cease in-person services until Nov. 30.

Non-essential businesses include barbershops, salons, and gyms. Food and drink establishments will need to halt on-site dining, but can offer curbside and delivery services.

Houses of worship can operate at either 25 percent of the maximum occupancy or 75 people at any time, whichever number is smaller. Lujan Grisham said New Mexicans are instructed to shelter in place and only leave home for trips pertaining to health, safety and welfare.

“New Mexico has crushed this virus twice, and we’ll do it again,” she said.

OUTLOOK

After Nov. 30, the state will have a three-tier county-by-county system to establish reopening benchmarks for individual counties.

“We feel very confident about this aspect of having the whole state, county-by-county working cohesively to continue to blunt the spread of the virus,” the governor said.

• Level 1 (green) would have a county with low positivity rates and low daily case counts.

• Level 2 (yellow) would be a county that is with borderline positivity rates and average daily case counts that would require public health restrictions.

• Level 3 (red) would mean a county has widespread illness and infection, restricting in-person activity.

“This permits counties the flexibility to engage more directly in both problem solving and rewarding by showing they have found strategies to mitigate risk,” Lujan Grisham said.

BY THE NUMBERS

• The state has seen over 60,000 COVID-19 cases as of Nov. 12.

• The state reported 1,753 cases on Nov. 12, which is the highest number of cases in a 24-hour period in New Mexico.

• Additionally, the state reported 182 COVID-19 deaths in the last two weeks, bringing the total to 1,176 deaths.

• Locally, McKinley County and neighboring Cibola County have reported over 5,100 and 900 total cases respectively.