Many museums can reopen Saturday under new health order

New Mexico's governor announced Thursday that museums with static displays can reopen Saturday for the first time in more than five months at 25% capacity under an amended health order.

The state's education chief also announced criteria that would allow schools to partially reopen to in-person classes after Labor Day. However, Quay County and other counties in southeast New Mexico currently would not meet those benchmarks because their per-capita cases of COVID-19 and test positivity rates for the virus are too high.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham the previous day announced an amended health order effective Saturday that would allow churches to operate from 25% to 40% capacity and permit indoor dining at restaurants and breweries at 25% capacity.

Lujan Grisham added that restaurants can provide outdoor dining at 75% capacity with tables 6 feet apart and no more than six people at a table. She also announced a doubling of the mass-gatherings maximum from five to 10 people.

The announcement Thursday potentially could allow Tucumcari's museums to reopen for the first time since March. Those include the Tucumcari Railroad Museum, Tucumcari Historical Museum, Mesalands Dinosaur Museum and New Mexico Route 66 Museum.

Museums that can reopen are limited to static displays. Museums with interactive and/or immersive displays, categorized as “close-contact recreational facilities” such as Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, must remain closed.

Loni Monahan, director of the dinosaur museum, said she needed final approval from the college but anticipated reopening at 10 a.m. Saturday. The museum's gift shop had been open for weeks, however.

“I'm so excited,” she stated in a text. “It's been a long six months, but we created so many great new exhibits we could not have done otherwise if we were open full time.”

Monahan said the museum's only interactive display she would have to close is its “dinosaur dig” area for children.

Education Secretary Ryan Stewart said while the Public Education Department's priority is to bring children back to in-person learning, he said he wanted to ensure the safety of students and staff.

Stewart said the requirements for re-entry of in-person classes would be the entire state meeting the gating criteria, that a county be in the green zone for per-capita new COVID-19 cases and test positivity rates, and that each district has an approved re-entry plan and safety and support plan.

New Mexico is meeting seven of eight gating criteria, and Human Services Secretary David Scrase expressed confidence it would meet the eighth once “data issues” with contact tracing are resolved. All school districts in Quay County also have submitted COVID-19 plans.

However, Quay County has a rate of 17.1 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people and a test positivity rate of 10.1% – above the criteria of 8 cases per 100,000 and a 5% positivity rate.

Scrase said the state is tinkering with the formula for the school re-entry plan to ensure one case in a small-population county wouldn't throw it from the green zone to the red zone. He said he anticipated the formula would be finalized before Labor Day weekend. He expressed hope counties in the red zone would lower their rates before Sept. 8.

Sept. 8 would be the first day New Mexico would allow all elementary children to attend in-person classes, many within a hybrid model with virtual learning, if the criteria is met. Re-entry for in-person classes for middle-school and high-school students wasn't announced, but Lujan Grisham previously indicated those might happen in late September and early October respectively.

Lujan Grisham cautioned residents to remain vigilant against the disease – especially with the Labor Day weekend one weekend away – despite the relaxation of restrictions. She said during a recent road trip to Espanola, she didn't see a single resident who wore masks in public.

“We have to do better because if we don't, we can't successfully introduce risk,” she said, adding that the state could face a tough winter because of seasonal illnesses.

Late in the briefing, Lujan Grisham said she and her staff were looking at additional relaxations of the mandatory 14-day quarantine – or for the duration of the stay -- for out-of-state visitors.

On Thursday, a total of 190 people in New Mexico were confirmed with the virus, bringing the total to 24,920 since the pandemic began. Scrase said the seven-day average was 118, well below the gating criteria of 168.

Nine deaths were reported Thursday, raising the total to 764.

In the U.S., a total of 5.8 million confirmed cases of coronavirus had been reported Thursday, with more than 180,000 deaths.