As many of you have already heard, Eddy County is now “Turquoise” in the state’s COVID-19 gating criteria, which is the highest any county can get within the existing gating criteria. Eddy County has moved up in each of the previous three two-week periods, first from red to yellow, then from yellow to green and now up to turquoise.

This means restaurants and realtors can open at up to 75% of maximum capacity. Large entertainment venues can open at a third of their capacity while indoors and 75% outdoors and recreational facilities can open at half their indoor capacity and 75% of their outdoor limit. Mass gatherings are now limited to 150 people or 200 vehicles. Many of the state’s COVID-19 safe restrictions do remain in place for specific businesses, such as spacing of tables. These restrictions are listed on the state’s web page. 

Where do we go after Turquoise? That’s a great question, but we also want to celebrate a remarkable improvement in Eddy County over the past month, in terms of a reduction in COVID-19 cases. We’ve made outstanding progress over the past six weeks. 

From the office of Mayor Dale Janway