As expected, Eddy County showed incredible improvement in terms of reducing the spread of COVID-19 over the past two weeks, but still remains in the “red” category. Eddy County now has a listed “cases per 100,000” average of 39.20 and a positivity rate of 10.78%. This is much lower than two weeks ago, when our “cases per 100,000” was 68.80 and the positivity rate was 18.05%. Positivity rate is a percentage of COVID-19 tests who come out as positive compared to the total number of COVID-19 tests administered. We believe that the large number of educators being tested for COVID-19 each week is probably helping lower our county’s positivity rate.
As a reminder, the two numbers are used as county-by-county gating criteria to determine a list of requirements such as whether restaurants can open for indoor services and at what percentage. If you get your “cases per 100,000” to 8 or below, or if you get your positivity rate to below 5%, you move into the “yellow” category, at which point restaurants in that county can open for some (25% of capacity) indoor dining, and other buildings and services can open at a larger capacity.
If you meet both requirements, you move into the “green” category, which is less restrictive than yellow. While we still disagree with a number of elements of this formula and its implementation, it is good to see Eddy County getting closer to the goal. We still have a lot of work left to do, in terms of getting the numbers down to where they need to be. A number of counties in New Mexico have moved into the yellow and green categories. Socorro County was the only county in the state to move into a more restrictive level over the past two weeks.
We also appreciate all efforts to improve the number of vaccines in Eddy County. If you haven’t already done so, please register for vaccines at https://cv.nmhealth.org/covid-vaccine/. You can also call 1-855-600-3453 if you have any questions about vaccinations.
The record cold weather that came in Wednesday night isn’t going away for some time. In fact, we have a chance of snow on Sunday through Monday morning. More immediate concerns are related to freezing fog and freezing drizzle across the Permian Basin. Please dress warm and stay safe. You can always call Weather Watch at (575) 885-1848 for 24-hour updates on the weather. Thanks again to Tony Pastorello for offering this service. Thanks as well to the Carlsbad Community of Hope for offering shelter to homeless when the weather gets too cold.
We have already received several great nominations for our Spirit of Carlsbad awards! Please keep them coming.
Sincerely,
Carlsbad Mayor Dale Janway