Pandemic showing no sign of slowing

SANTA FE — In its first report of 2022, the New Mexico Department of Health made it clear COVID-19 is not disappearing any time soon.

Officials said 7,313 new cases were confirmed between Friday and Monday by the department, with 131 in Curry County and 29 in Roosevelt County.

The total is the most announced in a weekend since the state began consolidating weekend totals into its Monday report. The prior mark was 4,991 announced on Nov. 29, with that report including five calendar days of new infections. The DOH began consolidating weekend reports into Monday starting in April.

Between Jan. 31, 2020, and Jan. 3, 2021, the state confirmed 5,255 COVID-19 cases.

More than a third of the cases confirmed Monday — 2,469 — were recorded in Bernalillo County. No other county recorded four-digit case numbers, but Dona Ana County was close with 950 new cases.

The new positive cases pushed the state’s seven-day test positivity rate to 17.9% — up from 10% on Dec. 27 and 9.5% Dec. 20.

Curry County did not make the top 10 ZIP codes for new infections in the Monday list, with totals on that list between 312 (87121) and 174 (87114). Of the top 10 ZIP codes on the list, nine were in Albuquerque and the other was in Las Cruces.

The state also announced 11 new COVID-19 deaths, with none from Curry or Roosevelt counties. Those deaths brought the total to 5,866 since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Monday saw 472 people hospitalized statewide for COVID-19, compared to 456 on Dec. 27 and 539 on Dec. 20.

The weekend case count brought the total to 357,486 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, with 311,304 cases designated as recovered.