Meanwhile, here in New Mexico things are looking very bad. COVID cases up, reaching over 400 per day, which is higher than ever before. Our statewide positivity rate now exceeds five percent, which has never been the case before. In the past, large outbreaks were usually traceable to prisons and jails. Now, they are affecting the general population. And the main source of spread appears to be people who can't stand the isolation anymore and are resuming visits with family and friends. This is not something that government can stop, short of truly extreme measures that I think all of us will reject.
The big spreader areas are the southern and eastern parts of the state, spreading into central areas. Southern and eastern parts of the state have positivity rates in the double digits -- comparable to what we saw during the serious outbreak in the Navajo northwest at the beginning of the outbreak. Albuquerque has positive rates of five percent or more. Las Cruces has positive rates in the high single digits.
Death rates are falling, to 2.77% at last count. However, this is probably not an encouraging sign. It means that the system is being overwhelmed with new cases. Hospitalization rates as a percentage of total cases has fallen, now below 12%. But the absolute numbers of people hospitalized are rising -- up to 120 now, after falling to between 60 and 80, but still far below our peak of 223.
Interestingly, the percentage of infected people who have recovered continues to rise, even in (most of) the most severely affected counties. Our number of active infections is unsurprisingly rising. (It actually fell somewhat in early September).
Our governor warns that we are on the verge of out-of-control, exponential spread, even as political resistence makes any sort of restrictive measures to stop spread impossible.
Brace for some bad times.
No comments:
Post a Comment