As it happened: New Mexico officials give anniversary COVID-19 update

March 11 marks the anniversary of New Mexico's first three cases of COVID-19 disease, the start of a long-running public health emergency that has turned daily life upside down, and New Mexico officials are marking the day with an update on the state's pandemic response.

The state secretaries for the state departments of Health; Human Services; Children, Youth & Families; and Aging & Long-Term Services are participating in a live webinar which can be viewed above. Refresh this page to read live blog updates below. 

Live blog

3:05 p.m. Human Services Secretary David Scrase shares new data: 236 new positive cases today, bringing the cumulative total to 187,720 and six new deaths today (with a total of 3,845 New Mexicans lost). Currently, 130 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized with 31 requiring ventilators. A total of 13,337 hospitalizations are reported. The secretaries hold a moment of silence for those lost.

3:07 p.m. For every new case, 50 people are being vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, Scrase reports, as cases continue to decline across all regions of the state. 

Half a million New Mexicans are now living in counties that have gone to Green on the state's color-coded risk scale, and only one county (Guadalupe) is currently at Red. 

Health Secretary Tracie Collins reports that at least 26.3 percent of the state's residents have received at least their initial dose of vaccine.  

3:10 p.m. Vaccinations are outpacing new infections and lowering daily incidence by more than 60 percent according to modeling from Los Alamos National Laboratories. 

Children, Youth & Families Secretary Brian Blalock opens a conversation among the secretaries looking back at the coordination between state agencies throughout the pandemic. 

3:15 p.m. "Early on, we felt panic," Aging and Long-Term Services Secretary Katrina Hotrum-Lopez says, because so much was unknown on March 11 about the nature of the threat. 

Scrase recalls how little medical data was available, at a time when little information was coming from Wuhan, China, the region where the coronavirus was initially identified. "Being science and data-oriented set the tone for what we did," he says. 

Collins, who was at the University of New Mexico College of Population Health at the time, describes the transition to course work and meetings via video conference and how rapidly that transformation occurred.

3:23 p.m. Hotrum-Lopez speaks of her own separation from a parent, and how it helps her identify with individuals who could not visit loved ones in residential facilities through the year. 

Blalock says the toughest day for him was when visits by parents to children in his department's care had to be suspended to keep them safe. "We were trusting the science and the data while something inside us was saying, 'Could this be real?'" 

"We had children, young babies, who were losing their ability to speak the language that their parents spoke," he continues, noting the cost of those suspensions in relationships and cultural connections. 

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Collins speaks of funerals and not being able to say goodbye to loved ones properly. She lost a cousin out of state weeks into the emergency, a loss she calls "devastating." 

Scrase said his own hardest day was Dec. 14, 2020, when the state was on the brink of having to ration care because hospital beds were stretched to their furthest point accommodating COVID-19 patients. "That was the point I will do anything ... to make sure we never get to again," he says.

3:28 p.m. The secretaries move on to lessons being applied today, including the extent of new data systems and acclimation to teleworking for much of the workforce. 

Perforce, Blalock says, the state has developed collaborative emergency response systems that are resilient. "Our shelter team could build a medical shelter on Mars if that's what the governor needed us to do," he says. 

Scrase says a major difference now is that he is focusing on events that might be happening a month or more in the future, as opposed to trying to understand what just happened. 

3:30 p.m. Early Childhood Secretary Elizabeth Groginsky has joined the conference. 

She speaks of making families feeling comfortable about returning their children to care facilities as the state sees the "light at the end of the tunnel" through the pandemic. 

"It has had a huge impact on individuals who've lost child care providers," she says. 

3:34 p.m. Hotrum-Lopez pays tribute to her staff, who pivoted quickly in response to the emergency, to help with food deliveries, surveillance testing, infection control protocols, and more, coordinating with other departments. 

"Our numbers are reflecting high rates of (vaccine) acceptance" among staff and residents at nursing and assisted living facilities, she says, which indicates they want to "take control" and take steps toward resuming a semblance of normalcy. 

More: Health department moves 60-year-olds with chronic conditions up in vaccine line

3:42 p.m. Scrase speaks of the inequities based on economic status of COVID-19's dangers, and says the department is "doing a better job" of serving vulnerable populations equities. 

Blalock calls the disease "the great exacerbater" of conditions related to multigenerational poverty statewide. 

2.6 million pounds of food were delivered to New Mexicans, Blalock reports, and said medical sheltering operations was a difficult and essential operation for public safety, which succeeded through local leadership including that of tribal communities in some of the worst hit counties early in the crisis. 

It led, he says, to building permanent resources like a substance abuse treatment facility in McKinley County and the repurposing of an existing structure to supportive housing. 

Collins speaks of leading a health protocols committee at UNM planning how to reopen the university safely when the time came. 

Groginsky celebrates widespread movement towards telehealth services which are now giving away to some in-person services again. 

3:48 p.m. Moving into the second year of the pandemic, Hotrum-Lopez says some of the technological solutions supporting working remotely should remain in place, as well as remote public services.

Blalock speaks of the imperative of building on telehealth capacity for the behavioral health system statewide. Collins speaks of the need to address socio-economic disparities in health conditions and services in year two, gaps that were exposed in the raw in the first year. 

Scrase speaks of rebuilding economic activity as more of the state gets vaccinated and approaches herd immunity. 

3:55 p.m. Blalock looks back on the early days of the emergency and expresses gratitude that New Mexico officials made decisions on the basis of data and scientific research. 

Hotrum-Lopez echoes that with praise for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the cabinet. 

Scrase said he initially thought things would be far worse based on how infectious and deadly the coronavirus could be. Avoiding another shutdown, he says, depends on the public continuing to practice mask-wearing, social distancing and hand-washing until herd immunity is achieved. 

"Not losing sight of the infectiousness of the virus" is crucial, Scrase says. "I'm relatively happy that we are where we're at now," he says, but urges the public to "stay the course a little bit longer." 

4:00 p.m. "I think New Mexicans have shown that they're willing to do what they need to do," Collins says when asked about the approaching spring break and St. Patrick's Day as schools begin to reopen. 

"It's still a balancing act," Scrase says on a cautionary note. 

Hotrum-Lopez says vaccinations in long-term care facilities are approaching compeltion and ahead of the target of the end of March. 

Asked about SARS-CoV-2 variants, no new data is available about their presence in New Mexico but laboratories are watch genetic sequencing to detect them. 

4:08 p.m. Scrase again says the coronavirus "shone a light" on important gaps in services and infrastructure statewide, including broadband and behavioral health services. 

Hotrum-Lopez says that in long-term care facilities, mental health professionals stepped up to offer services in those settings, and speaks of efforts to move electronic devices into residential facilities to help them stay connected with families and loved ones. 

Efforts are underway to implement programs that continue reducing isolation for seniors in these facilities, she says, working with the Human Services Department. 

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Blalock says because of the shared experience of surviving the pandemic, "we are in this interesting moment...where we can intentionally work to destigmatize mental health services," and normalizing the decision to reach out for help.

4:23 p.m. Collins says there is a need to monitor post-traumatic stress from the pandemic as well as increases in substance abuse. 

Scrase recalls the essential workers who reported to work on March 12 and the days thereafter and says, "They are really an important part of our culture here in New Mexico and we really need to make sure that they have what they need."

Scrase addresses the decision in Texas to remove mask mandates and loosen restrictions, and says "serious problems" and case increases were apt to follow by making that move without giving vaccinations a chance to overtake the rate of daily new cases. 

There are tributes to the interconnected efforts of local officials, tribal leadership, hospital personnel and numerous teams in helping bring daily infections down.

Hotrum-Lopez recalls purchasing some toiletry supplies from the state's corrections department when there were runs on those supplies early in the emergency. 

Groginsky speaks of the work done in establishing the Early Childhood Department in the midst of the emergency, from what had been part of the Public Education Department. 

4:31 p.m. A question Scrase says the agencies receive frequently is what would have happened if the state hadn't initiated its public health orders, or did not do so as quickly. 

Given the state "starting behind" on many metrics, from number of hospital beds to levels of poverty and chronic health conditions, he estimates that 15,000 residents may have succumbed to the disease while the vast majority of the state would have been infected, comparing the scenario to the worst stage of the initial health crisis in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus was first identified.

With shared expressions of gratitude for each other's commitment, the secretaries conclude this observance of the first anniversary of New Mexico's journey through COVID-19. 

Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.