Last week President Joe Biden said the pandemic had ended. Yet the federal public health emergency order is good until mid-October and will likely be extended into January. For two weeks in a row all 33 New Mexico counties are pastel green on the CDC COVID Community Levels map showing low hospitalization rates from the virus across the state. Yet, only two counties, Harding and Hidalgo actually have low COVID transmission rates.
Walking around at the Detroit Auto Show last week, President Biden made an unexpected declaration in a 60 Minutesinterview.
"The pandemic is over. If you notice, no one's wearing masks, everybody seems to be in pretty good shape," Biden told the CBS reporter.
Detroit is in Wayne County which has high COVID transmission. In the next seven days, nearly 2500 Americans died from the virus including 38 in New Mexico. McKinley County maintains the 3rd highest mortality rate among counties, reflecting COVID’s toll in the Navajo Nation.
While the White House has since qualified the remarks, they come as the New Mexico Department of Health vaccine dashboard shows only 37% of those over 65 and only 17% over 18 are up to date on their COVID vaccination series. Aging and Long-Term Services Department Secretary Katrina Hotrum-Lopez said last week that is far behind the state’s goal for elders.
"We're looking at targeting about 80% for our residents. And so we're pushing very hard to make sure that that happens," she said.
In the same COVID update, Acting Health Secretary, David Scrase said ending the state’s public health emergency depends on when the federal public health emergency order ends.
"I think in New Mexico, because we have the third lowest per capita income and low-income people in New Mexico are so dependent on federal benefits. And the enhanced federal benefits that we're seeing now are dependent on maintaining a public health emergency, there is very little likelihood that we will end our public health emergency before the federal government does," he said. "That would would create a very, very difficult situation for 970,000 some people on Medicaid in our state."
The federal order expires October 13, but is projected to be extendedinto January, 2023 and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Beccera has promised to give states and tribes 60 days notice to prepare. Almost 100,000 people could lose Medicaid in New Mexico when the order ends.
New Mexico also has 40 cases of Monkeypox, seven more than last week. Find more information on Monkeypox and omicron-specific boosters at cv.nmhealth.org.
