October 16, 2020

Third day in a row of NM shattering COVID-19 case record, with 819 new cases

New Mexico’s streak of ever-growing records of daily COVID-19 cases took another leap on Friday, as the state Department of Health reported 819 new cases, 147 more than the previous record of 672, set on Thursday. It was the third straight day that New Mexico reached its record number of cases and represented growth in […]

Matthew Reichbach

New Mexico’s streak of ever-growing records of daily COVID-19 cases took another leap on Friday, as the state Department of Health reported 819 new cases, 147 more than the previous record of 672, set on Thursday.

It was the third straight day that New Mexico reached its record number of cases and represented growth in counties and detention centers throughout the state.

The state also reported six additional deaths related to the disease.

The new cases included 146 in Doña Ana County, the most for that county since the beginning of the pandemic, and the first time the county reported more than 100 cases. El Paso County in Texas, which borders Doña Ana County, reported 838 cases on Friday—more cases than the entire state of New Mexico.

Bernalillo County led the state again, with 178 new cases of COVID-19. This came a day after the county reported over 300 cases, nearly half of which were at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

DOH reported 76 new cases in Curry County, which shattered that county’s previous record, while Lea County had 54 cases, Sandoval County had 42 cases, Santa Fe County had 39 cases, Eddy County had 36 cases and Luna County had 30 cases.

Four counties had between 20 and 30 cases: San Juan County (29), Chaves County (26), Otero County (23) and Valencia County (23). Lincoln County was the other county with a double-digit number of cases, 16, while 11 counties reported at least one case. In all, 24 counties had at least one case.

DOH also reported double-digit growth in two detention facilities, with 31 among those being held for federal agencies at the Otero County Prison Facility and 20 among inmates of the state Corrections Department at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility in Doña Ana County. DOH also reported one additional case among state inmates at the Lea County Correctional Facility. These numbers are reported separate from the counties in which the facilities reside.

DOH announced six additional deaths related to COVID-19 and provided some details on each.

A female in her 80s from Bernalillo County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions. The individual was a resident of Las Palomas Center in Albuquerque.
A female in her 90s from Chaves County who had underlying conditions and was a resident of Heartfelt Manor Assisted Living in Roswell.
A female in her teens from Eddy County.
A female in her 70s from Roosevelt County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A female in her 70s from San Juan County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.
A male in his 60s from Socorro County who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions.

As usual, DOH did not disclose which underlying conditions any of the deceased had, only if one was present before they died.

DOH has now found 35,770 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and reported 928 deaths related to the disease.

Hospitalizations for COVID-19 also increased again, reaching 168 as of Friday, 18 more than on Thursday. This was the highest number of those hospitalized since July 22. The most hospitalizations reported in a single day was 223 on May 15. These could include those from other states who are hospitalized for COVID-19, but would not include New Mexicans who are hospitalized out of state.

The number of those designated as recovered by DOH increased by 156 to 19,613.

Gating criteria

The daily number of cases by specimen collection date again hit a new high, this time 404 as of Oct. 9 on a seven-day rolling average—the date on this measure lags since some labs take longer to process tests and report results. Early indications from the partial results in the modeling report from earlier this week show this will continue to increase. The state aims to keep this at 168 or below.

One positive is the state’s number of tests per day continues to rise and has hit a new high on a seven-day rolling average. The state averaged 7,971 tests in the seven days ending on Oct. 15, the last day for which there are totals. This is well above the state’s goal of 5,000 tests per day.

The test positivity rate, which is also on a seven-day rolling average, reached 5.7 percent as of Oct. 15. This is based on the date that the tests are performed, not when cases are reported. The state’s goal is to keep this at below 5 percent.

The rate of spread, or the average number of people someone with COVID-19 will spread the disease to, was at 1.29 as of OCt. 15, still well above the state’s goal of 1.05 or less. This reached as high as 1.3 in recent days, and has been over 1.25 since late September.

Testing details

According to the state coronavirus information page, there have been 1,035,851 COVID-19 tests processed in New Mexico, an increase of 8,459. While DOH does not use the number of tests processed for calculating its positivity rate, this would translate to a 10.33 percent positivity rate.

Here are the daily cases reported on Friday, by county.

178 new cases in Bernalillo County
26 new cases in Chaves County
9 new cases in Cibola County
76 new cases in Curry County
146 new cases in Doña Ana County
36 new cases in Eddy County
3 new cases in Grant County
54 new cases in Lea County
16 new cases in Lincoln County
30 new cases in Luna County
5 new cases in McKinley County
1 new case in Mora County
23 new cases in Otero County
4 new cases in Rio Arriba County
8 new cases in Roosevelt County
42 new cases in Sandoval County
29 new cases in San Juan County
4 new cases in San Miguel County
39 new cases in Santa Fe County
6 new cases in Sierra County
7 new cases in Socorro County
1 new case in Taos County
1 new case in Union County
23 new cases in Valencia County
31 new cases among individuals being held by federal agencies at the Otero County Prison Facility
1 new case among New Mexico Corrections Department inmates at the Lea County Correctional Facility
20 new cases among New Mexico Corrections Department inmates at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility in Doña Ana County

DOH also provided the total number of cases by county, including Friday’s numbers.

DOH identified seven previously reported cases as duplicates (three in Chaves County, two in Bernalillo County, one in Doña Ana County and one in Santa Fe County) and these were corrected and removed from the totals.

Bernalillo County: 8,605
Catron County: 9
Chaves County: 1,687
Cibola County: 487
Colfax County: 41
Curry County: 1,231
De Baca County: 1
Doña Ana County: 4,500
Eddy County: 1,125
Grant County: 159
Guadalupe County: 37
Harding County: 1
Hidalgo County: 111
Lea County: 1,767
Lincoln County: 283
Los Alamos County: 37
Luna County: 558
McKinley County: 4,454
Mora County: 13
Otero County: 342
Quay County: 86
Rio Arriba County: 432
Roosevelt County: 373
Sandoval County: 1,664
San Juan County: 3,565
San Miguel County: 132
Santa Fe County: 1,312
Sierra County: 73
Socorro County: 155
Taos County: 165
Torrance County: 91
Union County: 38
Valencia County: 725

DOH reported the following numbers of COVID-19 cases among individuals held by federal agencies at the following facilities:

Cibola County Correctional Center: 329
Otero County Prison Facility: 333
Otero County Processing Center: 181
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: 40
Lea County Correctional Facility: 76
Northeast New Mexico Correctional Facility in Union County: 5
Northwest New Mexico Correctional Center in Cibola County: 1
Otero County Prison Facility: 472
Penitentiary of New Mexico in Santa Fe County: 1
Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility in Doña Ana County: 25
Western New Mexico Correctional Facility in Cibola County: 4

DOH has identified at least one positive COVID-19 case in residents and/or staff in the past 28 days at 45 long-term care facilities, two more than reported on Thursday: