Today, March 17, is the one-year anniversary of San Francisco Mayor Breed’s first in the nation order to stay at home during the pandemic. That order was announced the day before, so my wife and I got on a plane and flew to New Mexico that day, where we have remained since. We were already planning to come here the next day, but changed flights since I wasn’t sure if stay-at-home meant we couldn’t get to the airport!
Like everyone else, we’ve become addicted first to news and opinion about COVID-19 itself and then more recently about the vaccines to inoculate against the virus. We’re still residents of California but have been living in New Mexico, so we get to see how both states have handled the pandemic.
New Mexico: Our governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, has been tough on the rules around the pandemic here in New Mexico, issuing orders as soon as she understood the threat. As a result, the state has experience fewer cases and fewer deaths than other states, with one exception: the Navajo Nation and the native American pueblos, where the virus took hold much more severely than the rest of the population. It is several weeks since anyone died from the virus in Santa Fe County; 3,862 have died in the state since the pandemic started, out of a population of 2.1M.
California: Our governor, Gavin Newsom, is facing a recall effort (which probably won’t work) for his handling of the pandemic in the state. The state has seen 56,788 people die out of a population of 40M.
Now we’re all trying to get vaccinated and the story continues: NM has given at least one shot to 30% of its population; California 22%. But here’s the rub; I’m 69 years old and have a suppressed immune system (from treatment for bone marrow cancer three years ago, which I thankfully beat), so I keep wondering why I haven’t heard from New Mexico about getting a vaccine. The state has a black-box system where you are required to register to get in line for an appointment to get a vaccine; you have to give your age, indicate underlying conditions and provide contact information, which I did about two months ago.
I know a couple of dozen people who drove 4.5 hours from Santa Fe to Amarillo, Texas to get their vaccines. And I’ve been called twice by the San Francisco Department of Health to schedule my vaccine there. I did just call and now have an appointment next Tuesday to be vaccinated.
The ultimate offense: My 38-year-old daughter is visiting us from California, registered for the vaccine here in NM when she arrived two weeks ago, and was just notified that she has an appointment tomorrow!
The question remains, @GovMLG, what does this efficiency entail? Why is that you can jab 30% of the population without revealing, as in the public interest, who is getting vaccinated and why? You have done such a great job in protecting the interests of New Mexico citizens, why leave everyone in the dark who hasn’t yet received a vaccine?
Postscript: I contracted COVID-19 three weeks after I arrived in NM last year, was admitted to the hospital on April 9, 2020, discharged on May 4 and declared virus free three weeks later. I like to tell people I had it worse than former (thank god!) President Donald Trump; I got great care from my doctor and the hospital staff and have fully recovered. But I don’t think that’s supposed to matter for getting a vaccine.