New Mexico continues to meet its gating criteria as it moves towards some reopening of in-person instruction following Labor Day.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday DOH reported 154 new cases and three newly announced deaths.
Doña Ana County had the most newly reported cases, with 33, and was one of six counties with double-digit numbers of newly reported cases along with Bernalillo and Chaves counties (24), Lea County (19), Eddy County (13) and McKinley County (10).
The state has now found 25,612 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 790 deaths related to the disease.
DOH provided some details on the three newly reported deaths related to COVID-19.
- A female in her 80s from Bernalillo County who had underlying conditions and was a resident of Las Palomas Center in Albuquerque.
- A male in his 60s from Doña Ana County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
- A female in her 100s from San Juan County who had underlying conditions and was a resident of BeeHive Homes of Farmington.
As usual, because of privacy concerns, the state did not say which underlying conditions any of the deceased had, only if one was present.
DOH also reported that 71 individuals were hospitalized for COVID-19, a decrease of one from Tuesday’s update. This could include those from other states who are hospitalized for COVID-19, but would not include New Mexico residents who are hospitalized in other states.
Additionally, DOH reported that 13,180 confirmed COVID-19 cases are now designated as recovered, an increase of 107 from Tuesday’s update.
Modeling update, gating criteria
The state provided its weekly modeling update on Wednesday, which showed New Mexico continues to meet its gating criteria heading into the Labor Day weekend.
The state’s r-effective, as calculated by Presbyterian Healthcare Services, is 1.0 as of September 1, meeting its goal of at or below 1.05.
And the number of daily cases by specimen collection date is at 120 on a seven-day rolling average. The state hopes to keep this number at or below 168.
The state is also meeting its criteria on the time it takes to speak to those who came in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
The number of tests per day continues to fall, with Human Services Department Secretary Dr. David Scrase said in a webinar with members of the press wasn’t because of a lack of availability.
“I think there’s just less of a public demand for testing,” Scrase said. “Access is still there.”
He said that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is constantly working on getting more supplies for the state to conduct tests.
Scrase touched on a number of topics during the webinar, including some treatments touted on the internet.
“The internet is absolutely full of purported treatments for COVID. Some obviously not effective, like zinc,” Scrase said. “Obviously not going to kill COVID.”
One treatment that he said has helped, though he noted it isn’t a cure, is remdesivir, an antiviral drug that he said has helped New Mexico clinicians treat those with COVID-19.
“Remdesivir is a big success story in New Mexico,” Scrase said.
New Mexico has used the drug and found that it has reduced recovery time from 15 days to 11 days in the state and the mortality rate from 11.9 percent to 7.1 percent.
As for convalescent plasma treatment, Scrase said the main problem is availability. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an emergency use authorization for the use of the plasma of those who have recovered from COVID-19 in those who are infected.
But he said that studies that showed that not everyone who recovers have antibodies and that those antibodies may fade relatively quickly in some of those mean it may be difficult to find enough plasma to treat and study how effective the treatment would be.
Testing data
The state has reported the results of 770,959 tests as of Wednesday, according to the state’s coronavirus information website. This is 5,560 more than the number of tests that were reported on Tuesday.
Additionally, the state provided the numbers of newly reported cases by county.
- 24 new cases in Bernalillo County
- 3 new cases in Catron County
- 24 new cases in Chaves County
- 1 new case in Colfax County
- 5 new cases in Curry County
- 33 new cases in Doña Ana County
- 13 new cases in Eddy County
- 1 new case in Grant County
- 19 new cases in Lea County
- 10 new cases in McKinley County
- 2 new cases in Otero County
- 1 new case in Rio Arriba County
- 3 new cases in Roosevelt County
- 1 new case in Sandoval County
- 5 new cases in San Juan County
- 1 new case in San Miguel County
- 5 new cases in Santa Fe County
- 1 new case in Socorro County
- 1 new case in Taos County
- 1 new case in Valencia County
DOH also provided the total number of cases overall in the state, including those from Wednesday.
The department said one previously reported case in Chaves County was identified as a duplicate and one previously reported case in Bernalillo County was identified as an out-of-state resident. These have been removed from the totals.
- Bernalillo County: 5,861
- Catron County: 8
- Chaves County: 754
- Cibola County: 398
- Colfax County: 20
- Curry County: 680
- Doña Ana County: 2,892
- Eddy County: 513
- Grant County: 84
- Guadalupe County: 32
- Harding County: 2
- Hidalgo County: 98
- Lea County: 1,151
- Lincoln County: 171
- Los Alamos County: 27
- Luna County: 316
- McKinley County: 4,223
- Mora County: 6
- Otero County: 224
- Quay County: 62
- Rio Arriba County: 359
- Roosevelt County: 204
- Sandoval County: 1,255
- San Juan County: 3,199
- San Miguel County: 83
- Santa Fe County: 828
- Sierra County: 38
- Socorro County: 78
- Taos County: 116
- Torrance County: 63
- Union County: 31
- Valencia County: 515
DOH reported the following numbers of COVID-19 cases among individuals held by federal agencies at the following facilities:
- Cibola County Correctional Center: 324
- Otero County Prison Facility: 281
- Otero County Processing Center: 159
- Torrance County Detention Facility: 44
DOH also reported the following numbers of COVID-19 cases among individuals held by the New Mexico Corrections Department at the following facilities:
- Central New Mexico Correctional Facility in Valencia County: 29
- Lea County Correctional Facility: 4
- Northeast New Mexico Correctional Facility in Union County: 1
- Northwest New Mexico Correctional Center in Cibola County: 1
- Otero County Prison Facility: 473
- Penitentiary of New Mexico in Santa Fe County: 1
- Western New Mexico Correctional Facility in Cibola County: 4
There are 53 acute care or long-term care facilities with at least one staff or resident who tested positive for the disease within the last 28 days, according to DOH. This is the same number of facilities as Tuesday.
