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Registered nurses Mandy Cordova, left, and Mikayla Salazar, right, help Dr. James Gonzales put a breathing tube for a respirator into a COVID-19 patient at Guadalupe County Hospital in Santa Rosa on Dec. 11. The patient, an inmate at Guadalupe County Corrections, was later transferred to a hospital in Albuquerque. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)
The deadliest seven-day stretch of the pandemic in New Mexico started 2½ weeks before Christmas.
As many New Mexicans turned to online gift buying and planned scaled-down holiday celebrations, hospitals in the state were bursting at the seams and dealing with the horrific realities of the pandemic.
A staggering 297 New Mexicans succumbed to the virus from Dec. 7 to Dec. 13, among them Jerry Hernandez, a 68-year-old retired truck driver from Albuquerque who died at Presbyterian Rust Medical Center a week after testing positive.
B117 variant of coronavirus may have begun to circulate in US in October
Researchers examined 2 million positive cases from US in recent months
They found more instances of virus that was missing signal from genetic code
The S gene dropout is similar to the mutation found in B117 variant from the UK
New strain of virus was first announced by UK officials in mid-December
Research shows that the mutation had been circulating in UK since September
New variant is thought to be much more contagious, according to experts
Experts warn it could fuel case surge in US unless more people are vaccinated