New Mexico tops 12,000 virus cases as Doña Ana County nears 1,000
SANTA FE, New Mexico — The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in New Mexico exceeded 12,000 on Tuesday as state health officials reported an additional 168 cases.
The latest cases bring the statewide tally since the outbreak began to 12,147.
Three New Mexico counties — Bernalillo (36), McKinley (28) and Doña Ana (21) — accounted for half of the additional cases reported Tuesday. Doña Ana County continues to inch toward 1,000 cumulative cases, with their total currently standing at 949.
New Mexico’s infections to date include 905 state and federal inmates who are being held at lockups around the state. Facilities in Otero County are by far the hardest hit, with the Otero County Prison reporting five new cases Tuesday to take its total to 718. The adjoining Otero County Ice Processing Center accounts for another 146 cases, although it reported no new infections.
Aside from the prison, Otero County reported just one new case Tuesday among its residents, bringing total infections for the non-prison population to 42.
State health officials also reported four additional deaths, bringing the total of people in New Mexico who are known to have died from the virus to 497.
The only of those new four deaths to occur in southern New Mexico was a man in his 70s from Luna County. Officials said he had been hospitalized with underlying conditions. The other new fatalities occurred in McKinley and San Juan counties in the northwest corner of the state.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham warned last week that she was pausing plans for another phase of economic reopening because virus numbers in the state have been trending upward. She has blamed lax personal behaviors and pleaded with people to stay at home, avoid gatherings and to wear masks when out in public.
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. (The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
