February 26, 2021

DOH reports 659 new COVID-19 cases, 14 additional deaths

The streak of days with 500 or fewer newly reported cases of COVID-19 was ended on Friday after nearly two weeks, when the state reported 659 new cases, along with 14 additional deaths. The new increase of cases came largely with 209 new cases in Bernalillo County and 191 at the Lea County Correctional Facility. […]

Matthew Reichbach

The streak of days with 500 or fewer newly reported cases of COVID-19 was ended on Friday after nearly two weeks, when the state reported 659 new cases, along with 14 additional deaths.

The new increase of cases came largely with 209 new cases in Bernalillo County and 191 at the Lea County Correctional Facility. Doña Ana County, with 58, was the only other county with even 30 newly reported cases.

DOH has now found 184,736 cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic and reported 3,685 deaths related to the disease. Of the confirmed cases, 141,833 are designated as recovered by the department.

As of Friday, DOH reported 226 people were hospitalized for COVID-19, the lowest number since Oct. 13. 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 14 newly reported deaths Friday.

A female in her 80s from Bernalillo County who was hospitalized.
A second female in her 80s from Bernalillo County who was a resident of the Life Spire Assisted Living North Albuquerque Acres facility in Albuquerque.
A male in his 80s from Bernalillo County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 90s from Bernalillo County who had underlying conditions and was a resident of the Ravenna Assisted Living facility in Albuquerque.
A second female in her 90s from Bernalillo County who was a resident of the Princeton Place facility in Albuquerque.
A male in his 90s from Bernalillo County.
A male in his 50s from Doña Ana County who had underlying conditions.
A male in his 70s from Doña Ana County who had underlying conditions.
A female in her 60s from McKinley County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 90s from Otero County.
A female in her 60s from San Juan County.
A male in his 90s from Sierra County who had underlying conditions and was a resident of the Sierra Health Care Center in Truth or Consequences.
A female in her 70s from Valencia County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A male in his 90s from Valencia County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.

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 42 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, continued to fall and reached 262 as of Feb. 19, the latest day for which the state has full data.

The number of tests, on a seven-day rolling average, as of Feb. 25 reached 11,886. It had dropped as low as 9,330 as of Feb. 19. The test positivity rate continued to fall, and reached 3.4 percent on a seven-day rolling average as of Feb. 25.

The rate of spread, however, has grown to 0.99, as of Feb. 25. The state hopes to keep this number at or below 1.05. Anything under 1.0 means the number of cases is dropping. The rate of spread remained under 1.05 in all regions except the northeast, which had a spread rate of 1.19.

Testing details

The state coronavirus information page says the state has processed 2,669,565 tests as of Monday, 17,355 more than reported on Thursday. The 659 positive cases Friday represented 3.8 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.

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