February 17, 2021

Supply still can’t meet COVID-19 vaccine demand, but cases continue to fall in NM

State health officials continued to express optimism over the trend of COVID-19 and vaccinations in the state, announcing that the state had administered over 450,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine as of Wednesday, including nearly 145,000 who have received both doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. The vaccination rate of 7 percent, Department of […]

Matthew Reichbach

State health officials continued to express optimism over the trend of COVID-19 and vaccinations in the state, announcing that the state had administered over 450,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine as of Wednesday, including nearly 145,000 who have received both doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.

The vaccination rate of 7 percent, Department of Health Secretary-designate Dr. Tracie Collins said, was the third-highest of any state in the country. It is also double the state’s rate from two weeks ago.

“We’re focusing on vulnerable populations and communities moving forward,” Collins said.

The state is still vaccinating those in the 1A and first two subphases of 1B groups, with an emphasis on those in 1A. Collins said that 64 percent of those in 1A group received at least one dose of a vaccine.

The main limiting factor, Collins said, remained that supply is unable to meet demand in the state.

“The issue is the supply demand mismatch,” Collins said. “And we’ve not caught up yet.”

The federal government supplies the vaccines to the states, which then are in charge of distributing the vaccines. While vaccine production has increased in recent weeks, it still hasn’t been able to meet demand nationwide.

Health officials expressed optimism that a new vaccine by Johnson & Johnson would be available in March. That vaccine requires just one shot and does not have to be kept as cold as the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, so it could be used for harder to reach, remote areas, Collins said.

But she and Human Services Department Secretary Dr. David Scrase said that continuing to wear masks, staying home when possible and continuing other COVID-safe practices is still important.

Modeling by Los Alamos National Labs shows that between 20 and 24 percent of the drop in cases can be attributed to vaccinations that have taken place so far.

This all came with the backdrop of improving numbers of COVID-19 throughout the state.

“We’re seeing a steady downward trend in cases, which is what we want to see,” Scrase said.

This included 589 new cases in the last two days.

DOH reported 281 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, followed by 308 new cases on Tuesday. At the same time, DOH reported 12 additional deaths on each day.

DOH has now found 181,332 cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic and reported 3,532 deaths related to the disease. Of the confirmed cases, 125,064 are designated as recovered by DOH.

As of Wednesday, DOH reported 280 people were hospitalized for COVID-19, another months-long low. 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 12 newly reported deaths Wednesday.

A male in his 50s from Bernalillo County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 70s from Bernalillo County who had underlying conditions and was a resident of the Tender Heart Assisted Living facility in Albuquerque.
A male in his 70s from Bernalillo County who had underlying conditions.
A male in his 70s from Eddy County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A male in his 70s from McKinley County who was hospitalized.
A male in his 80s from McKinley County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 60s from Otero County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A male in his 70s from Sandoval County who had underlying conditions.
A male in his 80s from Sandoval County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A male in his 30s from San Juan County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 40s from Valencia County who was hospitalized.
A male in his 50s from Lea County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.

And also the 12 newly reported deaths from Tuesday.

A male in his 40s from Bernalillo County who was hospitalized and was a resident of the Ladera Center in Albuquerque.
A female in her 50s from Bernalillo County who was hospitalized.
A second female in her 50s from Bernalillo County who had underlying conditions.
A female in her 60s from Bernalillo County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 80s from Bernalillo County.
A female in her 80s from Doña Ana County who had underlying conditions.
A male in his 30s from Lea County who had underlying conditions.
A female in her 70s from Lea County who was hospitalized and was a resident of the Desert Springs Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Hobbs.
A female in her 60s from San Juan County.
A male in his 60s from San Juan County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 60s from Santa Fe County who was hospitalized.
A male in his 30s 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 50 establishments as of Wednesday. 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 369 as of Feb. 11, still above the state’s goal of 168, but part of the continued downward trend in new cases.

The number of tests conducted each day reached, on a seven-day rolling average, 15,587 as of Feb. 15. This was below the peak of over 16,000 on Feb. 12, but still showed an upward trend in COVID-19 tests.

The test positivity rate, or the percentage of positive tests out of total tests on a seven-day rolling average, remained under the state’s 5 percent goal at 4.2 percent as of Feb. 15.

The rate of spread was 0.8 as of Feb. 15. Anything under 1.0 means the number of cases in the state is falling.

The number of occupied adult ICU beds dropped to 276 as of Feb. 12, under the state’s baseline capacity of 290.

Testing details

The state coronavirus information page says the state has processed 2,567,877 tests as of Wednesday, 16,645 more than reported on Monday. The 200 positive cases on Wednesday represented 3.54 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, and counts all tests and not any potential duplicates.

DOH identified seventeen previously reported cases as duplicates. These have been corrected.

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