February 22, 2021

DOH: 237 new COVID-19 cases, 11 additional deaths

The New Mexico Department of Health reported 237 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, along with 11 additional deaths related to the disease. DOH has now found 183,023 cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic and reported 3,635 deaths related to the disease. Of the confirmed cases, 134,105 are designated as recovered by […]

Matthew Reichbach

The New Mexico Department of Health reported 237 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, along with 11 additional deaths related to the disease.

DOH has now found 183,023 cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic and reported 3,635 deaths related to the disease. Of the confirmed cases, 134,105 are designated as recovered by the department.

As of Monday, DOH reported 247 people were hospitalized for COVID-19, five more than on Sunday. This could include those from other states who are hospitalized in New Mexico, but would not include New Mexico residents who are hospitalized in other states.

DOH provided some information on each of the 11 newly reported deaths Monday.

A male in his 70s from Doña Ana County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A second male in his 70s from Doña Ana County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 80s from Doña Ana County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions. She was a resident of the Good Samaritan Society facility in Las Cruces.
A female in her 90s from Doña Ana County.
A female in her 60s from Eddy County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 70s from Eddy County who had underlying conditions.
A female in her 50s from McKinley County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 70s from Rio Arriba County who was hospitalized.
A male in his 60s from San Juan County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 70s from San Juan County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 80s from Santa Fe County.

DOH does not disclose which underlying condition any of the deceased had, only if one was present before death.

The most common underlying condition for those who died with COVID-19 was hypertension, followed by diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to the most recently available mortality update. Some of those who died had multiple comorbidities.

The New Mexico Environment Department’s Rapid Response COVID-19 Watchlist had 34 establishments listed as of Monday. These workplaces had two or more COVID-19 rapid responses in the last 14 days.

Gating criteria

The number of daily cases, on a seven-day rolling average, dropped to 286 as of Feb. 16, the lowest number since Oct. 4.

The spread rate has increased slightly, to 0.89 as of Feb. 21. Any rate of spread under 1.9 means the number of COVID-19 cases in the state is dropping.

The average number of tests per day, on a seven-day rolling average, was 9,713 as of Feb. 21, below the peak of more-than 16,000 on Feb. 12.

The test positivity rate dropped to 3.6 percent, on a seven-day rolling average, as of Feb. 20.

Testing details

The state coronavirus information page says the state has processed 2,619,107 tests as of Monday, 9,346 more than reported on Sunday. The 237 positive cases Monday represented 2.54 percent of the newly reported tests, though this calculation is not the same as the one used by the state for its gating criteria, since it uses raw data.

DOH identified six previously reported cases as duplicates, one previously reported case that was not lab confirmed and one previously reported case that was determined to be an out-of-state resident. These have been corrected.

The total number of cases per county, as of Monday, are as follows: