ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - New Mexico on Thursday marked its highest daily count of confirmed COVID-19 cases and one of the highest daily death counts since the pandemic began.
Health officials reported an additional 1,753 cases to push the statewide tally to more than 60,770. Eighteen deaths were reported to push the total to 1,176.
“New Mexico has never been in a bigger crisis,” Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a tweet. She is scheduled Friday to address the situation and is expected to announce new public health restrictions aimed to curbing spread.
The state has been struggling in recent weeks, and health care officials have warned that many hospitals already are at or near capacity and that the current pace will be unsustainable as beds are filled and staff are stretched thin.
An alternate care overflow facility in Albuquerque designed to house coronavirus patients has remained locked and unused. It’s still unclear when or if the space will be used for COVID-19 patients, even as the confirmed number of cases and hospitalizations continue to break records.
The state of New Mexico and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers invested $3.6 million to renovate the now-closed hospital in Albuquerque, promising it would be operational in late April for non-acute patients recovering from COVID-19, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
The facility, which previously housed Lovelace Hospital, is one of 38 alternate care sites set up by the Army Corps of Engineers across the United States.
The state signed a one-year lease to use 360,000 square feet (33,445 square meters) of the privately-owned Gibson Medical Center for $8.6 million a year.
The New Mexico Health Department did not respond to an interview request by the Journal, but said in a written statement that the medical center remains an option for addressing overcrowding.
State health officials said opening the 200-bed backup unit now will be difficult because of a shortage of medical staff in New Mexico and surrounding states.
State Human Services Department spokeswoman Jodi McGinnis Porter said that original staffing was going to come from the New Mexico National Guard followed by support staff from the University of New Mexico Medical Center. The state is considering a federal request for Department of Defense military personnel to staff the facility.
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This story has been corrected to show the newly confirmed coronavirus deaths reported Thursday was not a record.
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