New Mexico governor makes plea for holiday safety as Las Cruces sees nursing home virus death

SANTA FE, New Mexico — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Thursday made another plea for people to be safe this holiday season.

She said in a tweet Thursday afternoon that her thoughts were with every New Mexican grieving the loss of a loved one.

“Even as we celebrate the holidays, we must continue to protect our families and our communities. Please be safe this holiday season,” she said.

State health officials reported an additional 29 deaths Thursday, bringing the state’s tally to 2,272 since the pandemic began. More than half of the latest deaths involved people who were residents at nursing homes or other long-term care facilities.

For a fourth-straight day, there was just one new death reported in Doña Ana County. It was was a man in his 80s who was a resident of the Village at Northrise facility in Las Cruces.

Officials also reported more than 1,900 confirmed Covid-19 infections for the day across the state, pushing the overall statewide total to nearly 135,200 since the start of the pandemic.

There were 259 of those new cases occurring in Doña Ana County, with it's pandemic infection total reaching 16,765.

New infections had tapered off over the last week, but health officials were concerned that gatherings for Christmas would lead to another surge.

Below you can see county-by-county data for virus cases and deaths across New Mexico. The data comes from Johns Hopkins University, so the numbers may sometimes vary a bit from what's reported by the state health department.