Los Lunas mayor tests positive for COVID-19; asymptomatic so far

A local elected official has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.

Los Lunas Mayor Charles Griego confirmed that he has tested positive for the disease and is at home, self-isolating.

The mayor said he had contact with a family member last weekend who tested positive and was tested himself on Tuesday, May 12.

“I’ve been home since then, working by phone and computer, self isolating,” Griego said. “The rest of my family has tested negative, and anyone I had contact with has been tested.”

The offices of Griego’s company, Heritage Company in Los Lunas, are still doing business, he said, but not face-to-face with customers as a precaution.

“I thought I was being very conservative, very cautious, but…,” the mayor said of the situation. “You just never know; that’s a lot of it. This can happen to anybody.”

Griego said he currently doesn’t have any COVID-19 symptoms and someone from the state Department of Health contacts him every morning to check his status.

“I feel fine, I don’t have any symptoms and hopefully won’t,” he said. “I had a sinus infection two or three weeks ago, which kind of mirrored the symptoms, but it’s been treated and is gone.”

The mayor said he would be in isolation for two weeks, which started on Tuesday, May 12.

Due to the nature of title work, Griego said one of his employees was in the Valencia County Clerk’s Office on Monday, May 11.

“We can do a lot of work online and remotely, but some information is available only in the clerk’s office,” he said.

Valencia County Fire Chief Brian Culp said all county clerk’s office employees were tested on Thursday out of an over abundance of caution.

“We also had an employee inform us they had one symptom of COVID-19, so to be extra cautious, we tested everyone,” Culp said.

All county clerk employees tested negative for COVID-19, the chief said Monday, May 18.

Because early in-person voting is taking place at the county administrative building, the chief said the employees with the bureau of elections, which is part of the clerk’s office, continued to work that voting location while they waited for the test results.

All employees in the clerk’s office were fit tested for N95 masks before voting began and the BOE employees wore them while interacting with voters, Culp said.

“In other instances, those employees would have been home waiting for their results but in this situation, we had no other choice; they have an election to run,” he said.

Culp said poll workers at the three early voting sites, which opened Saturday, May 16, will wear surgical masks, the same type that will be offered to members of the public if they come to vote without one. As per the most recent public health order from the state, everyone is required to wear a mask or face covering in public.

Poll workers have also been trained on the proper use of face masks and gloves, as well as how to sanitize the voting area. The fire chief also helped design an entrance and exit plan for each site to keep poll officials and voters safe.

Culp said in addition to the employees in the clerk’s office, all of the employees at the Valencia County Detention Center have been tested for COVID-19 as per a mandate from state Department of Health Cabinet Secretary Kathyleen Kunkel.

The secretary ordered all jail and prison employees be tested, Culp said, as well as at least 30 percent of the inmate population.

“We have had a few random county employees tested, but they’ve been negative,” he said. “We are going to try to hit the majority of our employees. It’s just a matter of getting the tests.”

The chief said in some ways, the test kits are still limited due to the state’s push to do more testing, especially in hot spots in western New Mexico.

“When you do mass testing where you open it up, that burns through a lot of tests, and with the secretary pushing for more tests in prisons and jails, it goes through a lot of tests,” he said.

The tests for the jail and clerk’s office employees were done by county fire personnel, who have been trained in how to take the swabs, Culp said.