COVID-19 in New Mexico: What are the numbers telling health officials?

Algernon D'Ammassa
Las Cruces Sun-News

SANTA FE - It has been nearly three months since New Mexico reported its first confirmed cases of COVID-19 and declared a public health emergency. 

On Friday, state Human Services Secretary David Scrase hosted a virtual news conference focused on various data the state uses to track the movement of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus throughout New Mexico and judge whether the state is meeting gating criteria for reopening businesses.

The data also apply to other decisions about public guidance as New Mexico enters a new chapter with the novel coronavirus: Working and living as safely as possible in the presence of COVID-19 without a vaccine, and while so much remains unknown about the disease.

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During the conference, Scrase confirmed that the DOH would soon begin reporting data on recoveries from COVID-19 by county, though he noted that reliable local data can be elusive and difficult to confirm, since patients may stop communicating with the DOH when they are feeling better at home. 

New Mexico Human Services Secretary David Scrase, seen in a screenshot from a virtual news conference on Friday, June 5, 2020.

A statewide total of 3,206 cases have been designated as recovered by the DOH.

Northwest remains major hotspot

Scrase said that thus far COVID-19 infections appear to have peaked at the beginning of May, with a slow downward trend since, while certain regions of the state presented trends health experts are tracking with concern.

Heat maps presented on June 5, 2020, show county data on aggregate totals and new cases of COVID-19 in New Mexico, with the northwestern counties of McKinley and San Juan remaining the state's major area of infection.

COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, continues to be most prevalent in the northwestern counties of McKinley and San Juan, with the Navajo Nation hit especially hard: According to Department of Health data, 57 percent of the state's confirmed cases were among indigenous populations as reported Friday.

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Scrase noted that, per capita, the two counties are ranked among the highest-concentrated areas of COVID-19 infection in the United States. 

McKinley County had confirmed 2,617 cases according to Friday's report from the DOH, while San Juan County had 1,893.

While the majority of cases recover after suffering mild to moderate symptoms, the disease can lead to complications and even death. 387 people had died after contracting the disease as of Friday, or 4.5 percent of confirmed cases.

Other areas of concern to health officials are in the east where New Mexicans travel to and from the Lubbock, Texas area, as well as Doña Ana County, which borders El Paso. El Paso County in Texas had recorded 3,213 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 90 deaths as of Friday. 

There were 28 new cases reported in Doña Ana County Friday, for a total of 535.

An outbreak among state and federal inmates held at the privately managed Otero County Prison Facility and the adjacent Otero County Processing Center (which houses ICE detainees) have also enhanced the prevalence of COVID-19 in the region. 

Read more:Another 116 cases of COVID-19 confirmed at Otero County Prison Facility

At the OCPF alone, 272 federal inmates and 219 New Mexico Corrections Department inmates had been confirmed as having COVID-19, and 92 detainees at the processing center. 

Nonetheless, the rate of new cases confirmed in Doña Ana and Bernalillo counties, the counties with the highest prevalence of COVID-19 outside of the state's northwestern corner, appeared to have stabilized, Scrase said. 

Furthermore hospitalizations peaked in mid to late May but were trending downward as well. On Friday night, the DOH reported that 175 individuals were hospitalized in the state with COVID-19.

New Mexico still ranks in the top five nationwide for its percentage of positive cases in children. The DOH website reported 1,085 cases among New Mexicans under the age of 20, or 12.5 percent of the total. 

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Additionally, a second child in New Mexico was suffering from a suspected case of multisystem inflammatory syndrome secondary to COVID-19, Scrase said. The case was awaiting confirmation from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

NM ranked high for COVID-19 testing

Meanwhile, Scrase announced that New Mexico is considered third highest in the country for testing per capita, and he attributed much of New Mexico's success in mitigating community spread and monitoring its movement in different parts of the state to the rapid expansion of testing.

Data on travel within the state, measured through cell phone metadata, indicated a gradual increase in travel since Easter and as the state approached the first phase of reopening business activity that had been restricted for several weeks. 

Scrase reiterated that travel of 50 miles or more within the state is excluded from the data set, which he has previously explained is intended to exclude commercial vehicle travel through the state. However, this also excludes motorists traveling between major cities in southern New Mexico, such as Lordsburg, Silver City, Deming and Las Cruces. 

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Warning against reacting to day-to-day bumps in cases, Scrase said he would not feel confident commenting on the effects of the first phase of reopening businesses on June 1 until June 22 or so when more data were available.

His answer was similar when asked by reporters whether he expected to see an outbreak following protests around the state during the past week over police violence and the death of George Floyd of Minnesota. 

Dozens of demonstrators protest police violence on the street near the Las Cruces City Hall on Friday, May 30, 2020 after the death of George Floyd when a Minneapolis police officer arrested and choked him on May 25, 2020.

"I know there will be more cases, I just don't know how many," he said.

Do cloth masks help?

Scrase said the state's medical advisory team involved 170 clinicians looking at all aspects of clinical care and the state's healthcare system, involving experts in different areas of public health to serve as "a bridge between what we know and what we need to know." 

Meanwhile, he observed that there is still limited literature on COVID-19 and that much of it is "not strong" because some researchers were reacting to pressure to publish research quickly.

Addressing ongoing controversy and misinformation regarding the efficacy of cloth masks being worn by the general public, Scrase said the best data available showed that cloth masks' main benefit was to make it less likely for people carrying the virus who had no symptoms from spreading it to others. 

"The average person … really are wearing these masks to protect other people," he said. 

They are not, however, suitable for healthcare workers, he said, who require N95 or other medical-grade masks. 

Data also show that eye protection is also associated with lower rates of infection, Scrase said. 

With cloth masks, however, he said researchers have found that mask-wearing can lead to a false sense of security, encouraging people to socialize more and/or to slacken on hygiene practices, especially frequent hand washing, with soap, for a minimum of 20 seconds. 

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Scrase also responded to frequent questions about Sweden's COVID-19 response, which eschewed the kind of partial lockdowns and stay-at-home orders implemented in the United States and other countries, in hope that the population would develop general immunity to the disease. 

He said that ultimately, antibody tests of a large sample of the population of Stockholm indicated a very low rate of immunity had been achieved. Meanwhile, the country has suffered one of the highest fatality rates per capita in the world

Staying on track for reopening

According to the federal website, www.CovidExitStrategy.org, which is updated daily, New Mexico was just one of four states meeting gating criteria set by the Trump administration for safely reopening regular activity, including reductions in cases, health system readiness and increased testing of the general population.

Aaron Valenzuela, co-owner and tattoo artist tattoos Garrett Perdue at Atom Bomb Studio in Downtown Las Cruces on Wednesday, June 4, 2020.

Scrase attributed this to New Mexico taking a more conservative approach than many other states, and expanding testing aggressively. The state also included the rate of the disease's spread among its criteria before that data set was adopted elsewhere.

The adjacent states of Arizona and Texas, on the other hand, are reopening more rapidly than New Mexico despite poorer trends. Scrase said they were "opening without being ready." 

It remained imperative, he said, for New Mexicans to stay home as much as possible and not to go to work if sick, in order to keep community spread moving downward. 

Scrase celebrated "amazing progress" on testing, to a point where some days the state is completing more than 5,000 tests daily. 

Noting that the state is hiring additional staff to focus on contact tracing, Scrase said that the median time currently taken to identify individuals exposed to new positive cases, make contact and isolate them was 23 hours. 

Another critical factor for reopening, according to the state's gating criteria, is having sufficient capacity in the state's hospital network to handle increases in COVID-19 patients without becoming overwhelmed. 

According to data Scrase presented Friday, out of a network of seven New Mexico hospitals, three had exceeded their capacity Friday morning, but there was ample room, including available intensive care beds and ventilators, to transfer patients. A transfer center among the providers was averaging 10 transfers per day, Scrase said. 

Scrase noted, for instance, that some patients had been transferred from Gallup all the way to Las Cruces; yet as of Friday morning, Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces was reportedly only at 78 percent of its capacity.

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Scrase also acknowledged the possibility of taking a step backward in reopening if cases began to spike, in order to protect the hospital system and reduce fatalities from the disease. 

What about schools?

Asked his opinion about public schools reopening in New Mexico, Scrase said schools should plan on reopening at their scheduled time in the fall while putting plans in place to move to remote learning in case of a new spike in cases, or to accommodate older teachers who are more vulnerable to the illness.

Additionally, he said schools as well as the health department would need to prepare for the next flu season, and for winter, with more respiratory illnesses active. 

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