You’re doing great, Rio Arriba County!
In this see-saw mask, no mask; open your business, close it; stay home, go out; we’ve mostly kept our virus infection rates down, outbreaks few and business closures to a minimum.
We’ve got to hang in there and meet herd immunity.
We’re firm believers that telling people to wear masks, wash their hands and counting infections is not good journalism. We’ll leave that to someone else to harp on readers to follow health guidelines and look at numbers.
However, we are going to plead with readers to jump on the vaccine train and drag someone with you for the ride.
The governor just agreed with the Centers on Disease Control that those who are vaccinated don’t need to wear masks all the time. New Mexico is at a critical point in its journey out of COVID-19. We all want our lives to return to some normalcy, travel, attend events, eat at your favorite restaurant with no fear.
The answer to all of that is we must get enough New Mexicans vaccinated to reach our governor’s magic numbers and she’ll loosen her grip on our lives.
City of Española General Services Director Jeff Sargent said during the May 4 Public Services Committee meeting that 68 percent of Rio Arriba County residents have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose and 53 percent have received two. That puts us in a great position to meet the governor’s 60 percent of County population fully vaccinated to reopen fully.
May 17 numbers show us doing even better. We’re at 9.8 per 100,000 infection cases. We need to do better, 10 is the max. But our positivity rate is at 3.71 percent, half the 7 percent max. Our fully vaccinated rate is 59.90. That’s almost at the 60 percent the governor wants at the end of June and well above the required 45 percent.
We acknowledge there will always be an anti-vaccine crowd and the rest of us must work around them and in spite of them to bring the virus to some semblance of control. It will always be with us just like different flu strains. But when (not if) enough of us get vaccinated, the infection rates will fall to a level where we’re not counting bodies and hospitalizations every day.
Teenagers now can get vaccinated and that will boost numbers also.
Here at the Rio Grande SUN we’re almost all fully vaccinated. A couple of part-timers are dragging their feet but say they’ll get it done.
It’s easy, quick and most people don’t even realize they got the shot. Yes, there are varying degrees of fever, lethargy and cold-like symptoms. It’s a small price to pay to be essentially unable to contract the virus. Recent CDC reports also state vaccinated people don’t spread the virus either.
That’s how we win. Please be a community member and make the effort.
We’ll get off the soap box now.