New virus case rate seems to continue decline in Dona Ana County, but some data delayed

SANTA FE, New Mexico — The New Mexico Department of Health reported just 69 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday, but five more deaths.

That pushed the numbers to 7,689 confirmed cases and 356 known deaths among New Mexicans to date as of Sunday.

The rate of new cases also continued to show decline in Dona Ana County, where there were only a half-dozen additional infections reported - taking the total caseload to 466. Deaths held at three, with the last one recorded on Friday.

But there's a potential caveat to those case declines for Dona Ana County and the state: Health officials indicated some weekend testing results were delayed until Monday.

Meantime, new cases continued to be reported from an outbreak at the Otero County Prison, which saw four new infections Sunday. Between federal and state inmates being held the facility, the number of cases has now grown to 112. The adjacent Otero County ICE Processing Center, the other federally-run detention facility in Chaparral, held at 92 cases.

All of state's latest deaths occurred in northwestern New Mexico in MicKinley and San Juan counties, which sit on the edge of the vast Navajo Nation reservation. The tribe, whose land also stretches into portions of Arizona and Utah, and has been especially hard hit by the virus.

Below you can see county-by-county data for virus cases and deaths across New Mexico. The data comes from Johns Hopkins University, so the numbers may sometimes vary a bit from what's reported by the state health department.