SANTA FE – Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered state flags to half-staff on Oct. 30 for a week of mourning in recognition of the state of New Mexico recording 1,000 COVID-19 fatalities.
The state Department of Health reported 13 additional COVID-19 fatalities that day, the most deaths reported in the state in a single day of the pandemic, bringing the state’s total to 1,007.
The state reported its first COVID-19 fatality March 25.
The state of New Mexico reported 334 individuals are currently hospitalized in the state with COVID-19 on Oct. 30, the eighth consecutive day the state set a new record for total COVID-19 hospitalizations.
According to DOH, than 17 percent of all COVID-19 patients in New Mexico who have been hospitalized did not survive.
Per Lujan Grisham’s order, state flags will be lowered from Nov. 2, to sundown Nov. 6.
The governor issued the following statement:
“One thousand New Mexican lives lost is an unfathomable tragedy. For many months now, the daily drumbeat of a few more deaths, a few more deaths has served to diminish the acute feeling of loss,” she said. “But it is tragic and real for me, every single day, because it is tragic and real for the New Mexican families with an empty seat at the table, a hole in their hearts that will never be filled. I pray for these families every single day. I ask you to please join me in praying for them — and acting t merely datapoints. They are mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, neighbors, educators, first responders, nurses, doctors, business-owners, entrepreneurs. Every one of these 1,000 New Mexicans was loved by someone.
“Every one of these 1,000 lost New Mexicans leaves a hole in a family, a community, our state. I grieve with them. New Mexico grieves with them,” she continued.
“We can and will rebuild our mainstreets. We can and will restore our economy. We can and will recover the jobs and livelihoods that have been lost in the economic turmoil unleashed by the virus,” she proclaimed. “But we cannot replace these souls, these lives, these loved ones. We cannot replace you. And the risk our state, our hospitals and our communities face has never, ever been greater than it is right now.
“I plead with New Mexicans: Take this virus serious2020-11-13ly. Don’t wait for the illness and death it delivers to arrive on your doorstep, within your family, to take the precautions we know work.
“Recommit to the mindset we all had in March and April and May: No errand is worth your life. No visit with friends and family is worth their lives. Please, fight through the impulse to surrender to the virus, to fatigue, to whatever it might be.
“Please, honor the 1,000 lives we have already lost in our state, honor their grieving loved ones by recommitting to common-sense, life-saving public health practices. Stay home. Wear your mask when you must go out. Wash and sanitize your hands. You will save a life. You will have done your part to protect our state.”
