Don’t hate me, but… there’s still time. 😬 Vibrio incubation period is like 12-96 hours. (Epidemiology: an entire career of being the fun police.) But hopefully you dodged a bullet! 🤞🏻

We’re actually very blue! We have a Dem trifecta & all our federal elected reps are Dems. We have free college, free school lunches, now free childcare, no restrictions on abortion, and pretty LGBTQ+ friendly. We’re bad on some metrics (like gun violence) but we’re working on turning it around. 😊

Bats, skunks, and foxes are our primary concerns here, although we weirdly had a bunch of bobcats in ‘24. It’s common enough in bats here that if you wake up to a bat in the house, either we need to test the bat or you need PEP. And we have plague, so if you see any dead prairie dogs, Do Not Touch!

Yep, if you had contact with a bat or coyote and we couldn’t test the animal, you would 💯 get PEP. They should not have been dismissive of your concerns at all! But we would likely not have recommended PEP for that dog bite here either. 😊 Bad bedside manner but probably a medically sound choice.

Yes, exactly! Here we evaluate based on behavior and county. If you’re on the east coast and you get bitten by a dog/cat that they can’t monitor, the risk is high it has been in contact with a raccoon so you get PEP. Always a big “culture shock” for MD’s trained on the EC when we’re like, “Welllll…”

Basically, dogs/cats in the west have such a low risk of getting exposed to rabies that we rarely recommend shots after a dog/cat bite. But if you get bitten by a bat, skunk, fox, bobcat, or mountain lion… do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight to the ER for rabies prophylaxis.

I work at NMDOH! We decide on a case by case basis, but the reason it’s rarely given for pet bites in the West is not bc of vaccine status of pets, it’s bc we don’t have raccoon rabies here, so unvaxed animals have low risk of exposure. East coast raccoons have tons of rabies, so high risk to pets.

Me too. This didn’t have to be this way.

If people need help finding a PCP w/ upcoming appts, call the NMDOH hotline (833-SWNURSE). Depending on city, we can usually find an appt within 2-3 weeks. Might be helpful if pharmacies decide to insist on prescriptions. Past that… I have absolutely no idea. Just so indescribably frustrating.

Update to my update is that CVS has apparently now decided to wait on ACIP in sixteen states. NM is one of them. Which was not what we were hearing this afternoon. 🙃 In conclusion, everything is fucked.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/w...

We’ve still got blue state health departments. I work at one, and I can say that we are full throttle fighting the good fight.

My guess is things are going to change pretty rapidly. Board of pharmacy and office of the superintendent of insurance will likely give some sort of direction here, hopefully soon, but we’re in a bit of a weird position without ACIP recommendations… which should have come out in June.

Update from what I’m hearing from DOH leadership: CVS appears to be allowing self-attestation of qualifying health issues. Walgreens and Albertsons are requiring scripts, at least at the moment. Also: I hate this timeline.

I can tell you this directive is NOT coming from the state. 🫠 We’re having a great time over here at the health department.