New Mexico’s COVID-19 daily case count is expected to rise significantly over the next few weeks. Acting New Mexico Department of Health Secretary Dr. David Scrase says current modeling suggests around 1,000 COVID-19 cases will be reported daily by the end of the month, noting the strain on hospital capacity.
“We're going to need to really ramp up monoclonal antibody treatment,” Scrase said. “Our hospitals don't have the capacity for the number of hospitalizations we'll see at 1,000 cases a day, particularly if those hospitalization rates are higher with Delta.”
COVID-19 daily case counts in the state have been under 1,000 since mid-January, though New Mexico’s State Epidemiologist Christine Ross says the case count is now rising quickly.
“We've seen this rapid rise in case counts. And this week, they're nearly 10 times higher than they were in the first week in July,” Ross said. “It's the rapid rise also that has caught us by surprise and is quite alarming. And we’re seeing this across the United States.”
Ross says the test positivity rate has also increased significantly, rising over 6% between July 8 and August 9.
“Statewide the test positivity rate was 2.5% on July 8, and by [August] 9 that had increased to 8.7%,” Ross said. “And so, we monitor, we try to keep an eye on the number of people that are testing and the number who test positive because it alerts us that there's a growing number of people that are getting infected with this virus.”
The NMDOH continues to emphasize the importance of getting vaccinated, seeking out testing and wearing masks.
