It is not enough to compare these to the numbers in the big four. The big four all have larger populations than New Mexico, so the comparison is not fair. Arizona has roughly 3.5 times the population of New Mexico; Florida 10 times, Texas 14 times, and California 20 times.
That makes Florida numbers especially easy to compare to ours -- just knock off the last digit and you have it Florida's total if just over 200,000, and rising faster with approaching or just above 10,000 new cases per day. That would be equivalent to about 20,000 total cases in New Mexico -- more than ours, but not spectacularly so. But the number of new cases a day is equivalent to 1,000 new cases per day in New Mexico --at least four times more.
Texas has 191,790 total cases and about 8,000 new cases per day. Adjusted for population that is equivalent to 13,699 total cases in New Mexico and 571 new cases per day -- similar in total cases, but at least twice as many new cases. California has a total of 260,155 cases and is running about 8,000 new cases a day, but with a spike to nearly 10,000. That is roughly equivalent to 13,008 total cases in New Mexico with about 400 new cases per day and a recent spike to 500. But Arizona is doing by far the worst, with 94,533 new cases and about 4000 new cases per day. With only three and a half times the New Mexico population, that is equivalent to 27,000 total cases and about 1,143 new cases per day.
Since none of these states except Arizona has a cumulative total all that much more than ours, it would suggest that California, Texas and Florida all had their outbreak under better control than New Mexico until recently. I believe that is true. Although New Mexico has a whole has done reasonably well, we have had a bad outbreak in the Navajo area in the northwest part of the state which skews that total for the state as a whole.*
As for New Mexico, our number of tests has gone up, from something over 4,000 per day to something over 6,000 a day. As a result, although our numbers have gone up disturbingly, our positivty rate has gone up only slightly. (Daily positivity rates are too noisy to allow any conclusion). The overall pattern has changed. Positives are starting to fall in the Navajo counties of San Juan and McKinley (San Juan more than McKinley). The prison outbreak also appears to have spent itself. The main outbreaks now are in the major population centers of Albuquerque and Las Cruces. Santa Fe is also seeing an increase, but not as bad. Once it was shocking to see San Juan and McKinley counties, with much smaller populations than Bernalillo County, exceed it in numbers of cases. Bernalillo County is now fast catching up to San Juan.
Is this the result of reopening? Or of the protests? Or is it backwash from our neighbors on both sides? It is hard to sort out the first two, but I do not think this is incoming from Arizona or Texas. Our counties bordering those states do not seem hard hit. The problem is mostly in Albuquerque and Las Cruces.
Finally, both hospitalization and death rates started falling at the same time as the increase in numbers. Hospitalizations, after holding steady at about 17% of all infections, have now fallen below 16% and are just over 15%. The mortality rate, after holding steady around 4.5%, has now fallen below 4%. This may be a good sign -- that a younger cohort is catching the disease and is less affected, or that we are getting better at treatment. But I am not convinced. Hospitalization and death are both lagging indicators. That both rates are falling may just mean that statistics are being overloaded with new cases, some of which will lead to hospitalization or death later on.
After all, another lagging indicator is the percentage of people who have recovered. That, too, is falling.
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*And I don't know, but it would not surprise me if Arizona had high numbers even before the latest outbreak, that was primarily in the Navajo areas as well. By now, the outbreak has spread well beyond that.
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