September 14, 2020

No new deaths, and 81 new COVID-19 cases, DOH announces Monday

Andy Lyman

State health officials reported on Monday 81 new cases of COVID-19 and no additional deaths related to the disease.

The most new cases came out of Bernalillo County where the state Department of Health reported 22 new cases. Luna County followed with 15 new cases, followed by Santa Fe County with 11 new cases. DOH also reported 11 new cases among state inmates at the Lea County Correctional Facility, which previously had only reported four cases.

The no newly reported deaths was the second time in the last week the state reported no new deaths in a single day, and part of a trend of declining deaths related to COVID-19. Per a chart put together by the Albuquerque Journal, the number of reported deaths on a seven-day rolling average dropped to 2.29, the lowest by the newspaper’s calculations since April 12.

The state now has 26,842 total confirmed cases of COVID-19 and still has 823 confirmed deaths related to the disease.

The number of those hospitalized for COVID-19 was 60, the state announced on Monday, one more than the reported total on Sunday.

The number of those designated as recovered was 14,470 on Monday, 63 higher than the number reported on Sunday.

Gating criteria

The state of New Mexico continues to reach most of its gating criteria, but the number of tests continues to fall below the goal.

The state of New Mexico updates how the state is doing in comparison to most aspects of its gating criteria each Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

The number of daily cases dropped to 89 as of Sept. 8, well below the gating criteria of 168 cases or below. The state uses the date that the specimens are collected, not the day that results are reported because different labs take longer to report results.

The test positivity rate remains very low, half of the state’s goal of 5 percent or below. The positivity rate as of Sept. 12 was 1.9 percent, the lowest since the end of March, in the early days of the state’s public health emergency.

When it comes to the rate of spread, where the goal is to remain under 1.05, the latest numbers have the state at 0.92, as of Sept. 11. This is the number of people, on average, that each person with COVID-19 will spread the disease to. The spread rate dropped to 0.61 in the Albuquerque Metro areas as of Sept. 12, the lowest of any region since the state began calculating the spread rate in March.

The state hopes to have at least 5,000 tests collected per day, on a seven-day rolling average. But the state dropped below this number last week, and was at 4,473 as of Sept. 12. This dropped as low as 4,208 as of Sept. 11. 

Testing details

The number of tests reached 826,619 on Monday, per the state’s coronavirus information page, 3,474 more than reported on Sunday.

The state breaks down the newly reported cases by county, with inmates held at state and federal facilities separated from the counties in which they are placed.

  • 22 new cases in Bernalillo County
  • 9 new cases in Chaves County
  • 1 new case in Colfax County
  • 5 new cases in Doña Ana County
  • 3 new cases in Lea County
  • 15 new cases in Luna County
  • 1 new case in Otero County
  • 3 new cases in Sandoval County
  • 11 new cases in Santa Fe County
  • 11 new cases among New Mexico Corrections Department inmates at the Lea County Correctional Facility

The state also reported the total number of cases by county, including those reported on Monday. 

One case previously reported as an inmate held for the state Department of Corrections at the Otero County Prison Facility was determined to be a case of a resident of Otero County, and has been corrected.

  • Bernalillo County: 6,077
  • Catron County: 11
  • Chaves County: 956
  • Cibola County: 403
  • Colfax County: 24
  • Curry County: 724
  • De Baca County: 2
  • Doña Ana County: 3,031
  • Eddy County: 625
  • Grant County: 99
  • Guadalupe County: 32
  • Harding County: 2
  • Hidalgo County: 98
  • Lea County: 1,264
  • Lincoln County: 177
  • Los Alamos County: 29
  • Luna County: 372
  • McKinley County: 4,266
  • Mora County: 7
  • Otero County: 240
  • Quay County: 69
  • Rio Arriba County: 374
  • Roosevelt County: 230
  • Sandoval County: 1,292
  • San Juan County: 3,233
  • San Miguel County: 91
  • Santa Fe County: 909
  • Sierra County: 39
  • Socorro County: 78
  • Taos County: 124
  • Torrance County: 64
  • Union County: 31
  • Valencia County: 532

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: 163
  • Torrance County Detention Facility: 44

DOH 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: 31
  • Lea County Correctional Facility: 15
  • 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 42 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. That’s a decrease of one case since Sunday.

Author