COVID-19 cases continue to accelerate across New Mexico, exceeding modeling

• New Mexico is among several states seeing increases in COVID-19 cases.
• Daily cases are exceeding projections for May.
• Rise attributed to omicron subvariants, lack of masking and waning immunity.

As subvariants of the omicron SARS-Cov-2 variant continue to spread, New Mexico is among several states seeing increases in daily cases of COVID-19. 

According to data from the state Department of Health, labs confirmed 2,479 new cases between May 9 and 16. That number has increased steadily since April and more than doubles the 1,117 cases reported for the week of April 18-25.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a 26 percent increase in cases nationwide over the past week with average daily fatalities at 275 and COVID-19 daily hospitalizations averaging 3,000.

CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky delivered the rising figures in a briefing Wednesday in Washington, DC, and urged Americans in areas of higher transmission to wear masks in indoor public places to slow transmission, and to get vaccinated or boosted, as reported by USA Today.

Finding out that information, however, has become more difficult as the CDC's website directs public attention to its "community level" heat map, which continues to show almost all of New Mexico (and most of the United States as a whole) at an encouraging green.

The "community level" map is a measure of weekly hospital admissions for COVID-19 per 100,000 population, factoring in the percentage of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients and new cases during the week. 

Yet the community transmission map shows high levels of spread from Doña Ana County in the south through 15 contiguous counties, including even Los Alamos County, where more than 95 percent of residents have completed a primary course of COVID-19 vaccine. 

Daily COVID cases in New Mexico exceed modeling report

Health officials have acknowledged that daily cases undercount the true number of cases as New Mexico relies increasingly on at-home testing rather than lab-confirmed tests that report results to the health department.

COVID-19 cases are back on the rise.There are 3 main reasons why.

The United States passed its millionth recorded death to COVID-19 disease this week, also widely viewed as an undercount. In New Mexico, 7,650 fatal cases were counted as of Wednesday. 

While most cases COVID-19 recover after mild to moderate illness, the disease also has a 1.4 percent fatality rate, much higher than influenza (with which COVID-19 shares many common symptoms).

On Wednesday, the health department reported 611 new cases in a single day, with 85 COVID-19 patients hospitalized statewide, of whom 15 on ventilators. Between May 8 and May 15, the health department reported 52 COVID-19 admissions. That does not account for high volumes of non-COVID patients due to delayed diagnoses or care for other health conditions. 

The 611 cases in a single day exceeds a modeling report earlier in the month by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which projected on May 3 that daily cases would range "between 35 and 490 in the next few weeks." 

The lab's modeling finds that while death rates have dropped recently, daily infections are rising due to waning immunity from earlier vaccinations and reduced masking indoors. The report recommends well-fitting N95 masks. 

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The report analyzes New Mexico vaccination data and found that waning immunity would contribute to growing rates of infection during May, and possible increased severity of cases which could lead to hospitalizations and/or death. 

Meanwhile, it calculated that approximately 600,000 New Mexicans eligible for a third dose or booster have not received one, and that vaccinations among children ages 5 through 11 have continued to be "slow." 

Between May 9 and May 15, the sparsely populated De Baca County reported the highest concentration of new cases when adjusted for 100,000 population (a method for comparing across areas of varying population size), followed by Rio Arriba and Santa Fe counties. 

In the southern half of the state, Grant County saw the highest levels of transmission during that week, with 28.7 daily cases per 100,000 population. Other southern counties saw lower rates, with Doña Ana at 14.2 per 100,000.

In the southeastern corner where much of the state's oil and gas production takes place, Lea County had among the lowest transmission rates (2.2 per 100,000) and Eddy County, with Carlsbad as its county seat, reported 5.9 daily cases per population.

McKinley and San Juan counties, which include parts of the Navajo Nation that was badly hit in the first year of the pandemic, reported 8.9 and 8.4 cases per 100,000 respectively. McKinley County also claims the highest vaccination rate in the state, with 99 percent of its population having completed a primary course of vaccine. 

Omicron, including at least four subvariants, accounts for virtually all infections currently sequenced in the United States, per CDC data. 

Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.