Cases soar in NM, Curry

An outbreak of cases at a privately run detention center near Grants spurred New Mexico’s number of reported coronavirus cases to a new single-day high on Monday.

In all, Department of Health officials announced 467 new COVID-19 cases, with 170 of the cases coming from the Cibola Correctional Center in Milan.

The 467 new cases shattered the state’s previous single-day high of 343 cases, an amount reported on July 23.

Curry County cases also continue to soar. The county has seen 46 consecutive days with at least one positive case reported.

“The active cases (in eastern New Mexico) are coming from community spread,” Health Department spokesman David Morgan wrote in an email on Monday. “There’s no one event or trigger for all these cases, it’s the sum total of our actions: not staying home unless we absolutely have to go out and not enough people wearing facemasks ...”

Curry County had 274 active cases on Monday. The county has seen more than 100 new cases in the past 10 days.

Across the state line, Bailey County had only 30 active cases of coronavirus on Monday, but five deaths had been attributed to the virus in a county of about 7,000 people.

Muleshoe Police Chief Gary McHone, who also heads up emergency management for the county, said there is no known common denominator.

Several coronavirus cases have been identified at Muleshoe’s Parkview Nursing Care Center, but McHone said only one virus-related death is connected to Parkview.

As of Monday, the region had reported 16 deaths related to COVID-19 — eight in Parmer County, five in Bailey, two in Curry and one in Roosevelt.

As in other parts of the country, New Mexico prisons and jails have emerged as a trouble spot for containing the virus, along with senior living facilities and other types of group homes.

An Otero County prison that houses both state and federal inmates has also seen an infection outbreak, with a total of 469 total confirmed cases through Monday.

Statewide, testing for COVID-19 has remained high — state health officials reported an increase of more than 8,100 tests Monday — even after three major health systems announced last week they would halt testing on asymptomatic individuals due a supply shortage.

The governor and top health officials have set a goal of at least 5,000 average tests conducted per day as part of the state’s criteria for gradually reopening New Mexico’s economy.

Albuquerque Journal contributed to this report.