Doña Ana County tops 200 virus cases; Otero ICE facility has 19 migrants infected
SANTA FE, New Mexico — New Mexico has recorded another 105 coronavirus cases, pushing the statewide total to 4,778 on Saturday.
In Doña Ana County, there were a half-dozen new cases reported, putting their infection count just over the 200 mark at 201. The county still has had just two deaths to date.
In adjacent Otero County, health officials indicated 19 migrants being held at the federal Otero County Processing Center had been diagnosed with the virus. The facility is operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and state officials said they would be tracking those cases separately from the other seven confirmed for Otero.
The state Health Department on Saturday also announced ten additional deaths statewide attributed to Covid-19, raising New Mexico's death tally to 191.
The latest fatalities include four deaths in McKinley County, a rural area along the New Mexico-Arizona border that includes Gallup and part of the Navajo Nation. Five deaths occurred in neighboring San Juan County, which is also part of Navajo Nation.
Despite its lower population, the tribal area in the northwest part of the state has been hit particularly hard. McKinley County leads New Mexico in the number of confirmed cases, accounting for nearly one of every three infections statewide.
The tenth death reported Saturday was the only one that didn't involve an elderly New Mexican; a man in his 40s died in Bernalillo County, which is the Albuquerque metro area.
Below you can see county-by-county data for virus cases across New Mexico. The data comes from Johns Hopkins, so the numbers may vary from what's reported by the state health department.
