.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 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.