New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, conceded Friday that enforcing coronavirus-related restrictions and lockdowns on private Thanksgiving Day celebrations is pretty much near impossible.
The Land of Enchantment has banned “mass gatherings” of “more than 5 individuals who do not regularly reside with one another.”
“You can’t enforce that,” Grisham admitted during a recent interview on PBS NewsHour. “There is no way anywhere in the country we’re going to be able to say, ‘Look, you brought another household together. There [were] 10 of you having Thanksgiving dinner.’”
Instead, the governor said, the state is having to rely on “personal compliance,” which she argued is “really incredibly hard to attain in any state.”
“Getting our businesses to support us more productively, I think, has been a bit of a challenge,” Grisham explained. “But I have to say, today, they get it. And we’ve been incredibly firm about — if you’ve got four different rapid responses, positive cases, we come in, we close for 24 hours, get everybody tested. If you get four of those in a two-week period, you’re closed for two weeks.”
In order to avoid that, she said, business owners are “coming to the table with solutions.”
“I’m feeling better about enforcement and compliance,” Grisham added. “But we need a reset in our state and we’re gonna get it.”
The governor said her administration is “very nervous about what Thanksgiving could produce” referring to the spread of COVID-19.
She also claimed it’s been difficult because the federal government is telling people the coronavirus is “a hoax.” President Donald Trump, of course, has not called COVID-19 a hoax, despite claims to the contrary from Democrats.
Grisham said she is doing “all the right messaging,” though.
“And we — that’s part of the reset, right?” she continued. “If you limit where people go after they’ve been exposed, then I can limit the spread of the virus. So we’re taking all of that into consideration.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging Americans not to travel for Thanksgiving or to spend the holiday with family or friends. Meanwhile, according to the Transportation Security Administration, more Americans traveled by air Sunday than any other day since March 16.