COVID-19 calls for changes

Na’ Nihzhoozhi Center Inc. detox center is undergoing changes since it reopened April 18 at 10 pm.

Dr. Kevin Foley, the executive director of NCI, says the police will continue to pick people up, but the detox center will only take in intoxicated people who have been confirmed positive after being tested for COVID-19.

Foley explained that this new practice means people who have not tested positive will not become newly exposed to the virus.

Foley says the National Guard is also helping to staff the center with 17 people in three shifts. They will handle administrative duties, such as getting charts and logging people and property in. The extra staffing...

Days Inn joins El Rancho, Motel 6, Howard Johnson’s

Community Outreach & Patient Empowerment has partnered with local hospitals, as well as hotels and motels in the Gallup area, to establish a network of care and emergency housing for quarantine and social distancing, in an effort to slow community spread in McKinley County and on the Navajo Nation.

This network now includes the Ranch House Motel, part of El Rancho Hotel, which was the first to receive COVID-19 testing patients awaiting results. It has since extended to Motel 6, Howard Johnson and on April 17, Days Inn.

The network also includes the Gallup Indian Medical Center and Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services...

Staff Reports

Eleven employees at Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital have tested positive for COVID-19 as of April 22. The staff members are under quarantine until they are cleared.  The hospital is in the process of testing and identifying all employees who may have been exposed to the 11 who tested positive.

City councilors move forward with convenience store restrictions

An online McKinley County commissioners’ meeting held April 20 addressed an ordinance restricting liquor sales and encouraging people to stay home between 8 pm and 5 am.

Ordinance 2020-April-002, established April 13, called for banning the sale of certain alcohol products and urging citizens to self-curfew between 8 pm and 5 am.

McKinley County Undersheriff James Maiorano III compared the response to the ordinance to a balloon full of water.  If you push it, the water just moves to another place. In the case of people looking for alcohol in the county, it means moving from convenience stores to grocery stores...