State health officials announced on Friday 96 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and three additional deaths related to the disease.
The state now has 25,902 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 794 deaths related to the disease.
The numbers from the state Department of Health come as the Labor Day weekend starts, and after state officials warned New Mexico residents to be careful and avoid large gatherings to avoid spreading COVID-19, as appears to have happened during the Memorial Day and 4th of July holidays earlier this year.
Bernalillo County, which has by far the most residents of any county in the state, had the most newly reported cases, with 16. Chaves County and Doña Ana County each had 13, while Santa Fe County had 10 newly reported cases. No other county had double-digit numbers of cases.
The state also provided some details on the three additional deaths.
- A female in her 70s from Bernalillo County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
- A male in his 70s from Chaves County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
- A female in her 50s from Roosevelt County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
As usual, because of privacy concerns, the state did not disclose which underlying condition any of the deceased had, only if one was present.
DOH also reported that 69 individuals are hospitalized for COVID-19, a drop of six cases from Thursday’s announcement. This would not include New Mexicans who are hospitalized out of state, but would include those from out of state who are hospitalized in New Mexico.
DOH also reported that 13,412 confirmed cases are now designated as recovered, an increase of 123 people from Thursday’s total.
Modeling update
The state fell out of its gating criteria for rate of spread (or the number of people, on average, someone with COVID-19 will spread the disease to), on a ten-day rolling average. The goal is 1.05 or less, but the latest update had New Mexico’s number at 1.07, as of Sept. 3.
The southwestern region had a 1.32 rate of spread, by far the highest of any region, while the southeast also exceeded the goal at a 1.1 rate of spread. The lowest was in the northeast, which had a 0.82 rate of spread.
New Mexico continues to meet other goals, including with 121 daily cases per day (as of Aug. 28), on a seven-day rolling average, below the goal of 168 each day. The state uses the date of collection, not the day when the results are reported. The results can lag depending on how long it takes different labs to submit the tests.
The state also has reported 5,204 tests per day on a seven-day rolling average (as of Sept. 2), above its goal of at least 5,000 per day. At its peak in late July, the state averaged 7,903 tests per day. The test positivity rate, or percentage of tests that come back positive is at 2.5 percent (as of Sept. 2) on a seven-day rolling average, well below the state’s goal of 5 percent.
Testing details
The state coronavirus information page said that, as of Friday, the state had processed 782,044 tests, an increase of 5,248 from Thursday’s total.
DOH also provided the total number of newly reported cases by county.
- 16 new cases in Bernalillo County
- 13 new cases in Chaves County
- 1 new case in Colfax County
- 9 new cases in Curry County
- 13 new cases in Doña Ana County
- 8 new cases in Eddy County
- 8 new cases in Lea County
- 1 new case in Luna County
- 3 new cases in McKinley County
- 1 new case in Quay County
- 1 new case in Roosevelt County
- 2 new cases in Sandoval County
- 5 new cases in San Juan County
- 1 new case in San Miguel County
- 10 new cases in Santa Fe County
- 4 new cases in Valencia County
The state also provided the total number of cases by county, including those reported on Friday.
Five previously reported cases (two in McKinley County and one in each of Chaves, Luna and Valencia counties) were identified as duplicates, and a previously reported case in Chaves County was not lab confirmed. These have been removed from the totals.
- Bernalillo County: 5,914
- Catron County: 9
- Chaves County: 787
- Cibola County: 399
- Colfax County: 23
- Curry County: 703
- Doña Ana County: 2,933
- Eddy County: 553
- Grant County: 84
- Guadalupe County: 32
- Harding County: 2
- Hidalgo County: 98
- Lea County: 1,178
- Lincoln County: 173
- Los Alamos County: 27
- Luna County: 321
- McKinley County: 4,230
- Mora County: 6
- Otero County: 227
- Quay County: 64
- Rio Arriba County: 361
- Roosevelt County: 206
- Sandoval County: 1,259
- San Juan County: 3,206
- San Miguel County: 86
- Santa Fe County: 849
- Sierra County: 38
- Socorro County: 78
- Taos County: 118
- Torrance County: 63
- Union County: 31
- Valencia County: 523
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 46 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 reported on Thursday.