“We’re going to make the decisions that safeguard New Mexicans,” the Democratic governor told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
But as Trump itches to reopen the country, it’s the nation’s governors and mayors who hold the real power to enforce closures and lift stay-at-home orders.
“We’ve looked at recovery options but we’re not going do anything until the peak occurs,” she said Sunday.
“If we had better national strategies and universal testing and software-based contract tracing, then we could really figure out when opening makes sense and we could start to do that in the country. So I’m going to do whatever’s right for New Mexico,” Lujan Grisham said.
On the same program Sunday, New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy also was hesitant to say when the state could return to normalcy.
“I fear if we open too early and we have not sufficiently made that health recovery and cracked the back of this virus, that we could be pouring gasoline on the fire, even inadvertently,” he told Tapper.
Lujan Grisham also spoke of the “unique challenges” the state faces in preventing the spread of coronavirus among its 23 Native American tribes.
According to Lujan Grisham, 25% of New Mexico’s positive Covid-19 cases are Native Americans.
“Some of these areas, particularly in the Navajo Nation, you’re in a situation where you’ve got folks living without access to water and electricity, and this creates unique challenges,” she said.
To support the Pueblo tribes, the state has set up roadblocks to help contain the virus and sent the National Guard to deliver food to the communities, Lujan Grisham said.