Copyright © 2021 Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico reported 19 deaths related to COVID-19 on Tuesday, a slight uptick from what the state had been averaging for the last week even as cases continued a downward trend.
The dead included five women and 14 men, ranging in age from their 40s to 80s.
Roosevelt County, which has about 20,000 residents and 1,800 cumulative cases since the start of the pandemic, reported as many deaths as new cases, five. Three of those who died were men who resided at the Heartland Continuing Care Center in Portales, according to Department of Health data.
A total of 413 new COVID cases were reported Tuesday, which dropped the state’s average to 471 cases per day for the past week.
Bernalillo County had the most new cases with 157. The state’s most populous county reported three more deaths, all women in their 70s or 80s.
There have now been 3,430 deaths related to COVID in New Mexico since the start of the pandemic. For the past week, a little more than 17 people are dying every day, on average.
Amid the declining numbers of COVID cases, the health department is expected to update its tiered restrictions on New Mexico counties on Wednesday.
Every two weeks, the department updates its map showing each county’s COVID test positivity rate and the number of new cases per capita. In order for restrictions to be relaxed, a county has to have a test positivity rate of 5% or less or average fewer than eight daily cases per 100,000 people.
Currently, Colfax, Grant, Los Alamos, San Miguel, Socorro, Sierra and Union counties are in the “yellow” designation and Harding County is in “green,” which is the least restrictive designation. The other 25 counties are in red.
As a county moves up the tiered system, businesses can have limited indoor dining and the number of people allowed to gather at once increases, among other changes to public health orders.
When the current tiers were announced on Jan. 27, New Mexico was averaging 749 new cases per day.
