New Mexico health leaders say virus cases trend down, vaccines rise; 5 new deaths in southern counties
SANTA FE, New Mexico -- New Mexico Health Secretary Dr. Tracie Collins and Human Services Secretary Dr. David Scrase shared encouraging news during a Covid-19 briefing on Wednesday afternoon: virus cases and deaths show some signs of decline while vaccinations are taking place at a brisk pace.
On Wednesday, the state tallied 670 new virus cases, totaling 175,652 for the pandemic. There were also 29 new deaths reported as the fatality toll reached 3,338.
Five of those latest deaths occurred in southern New Mexico's Doña Ana and Luna counties and included:
- A man in his 50s from Doña Ana County who was hospitalized.
- A woman in her 60s from Doña Ana County who was hospitalized.
- A woman in her 70s from Luna County.
- A woman in her 80s from Doña Ana County.
- A man in his 80s from Luna County who was hospitalized.
There was a 6.3% positivity result of the tests analyzed in Wednesday's report from the state. Overall, infection rates and daily deaths have been tending downward in New Mexico.
The seven-day rolling average of the rate of positive cases decreased over the past two weeks to 4.9% from 9.5%. Average daily deaths numbered about 20, down from 28.
As of Wednesday, there had been a total of 316,150 vaccines delivered to New Mexico, with 291,742 of those vaccines administered. And there have been 67,106-second doses administered, which means 3.2% of the state is now fully vaccinated.
New Mexico currently has the fourth-highest vaccination rate among all states in the nation.
You can watch the entire briefing by state health leaders in the video player at the top of this article.
And 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.
