February 17, 2021
State health officials continued to express optimism over the trend of COVID-19 and vaccinations in the state, announcing that the state had administered over 450,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine as of Wednesday, including nearly 145,000 who have received both doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
The vaccination rate of 7 percent, Department of Health Secretary-designate Dr. Tracie Collins said, was the third-highest of any state in the country. It is also double the state’s rate from two weeks ago.
“We’re focusing on vulnerable populations and communities moving forward,” Collins said.
The state is still vaccinating those in the 1A and first two subphases of 1B groups, with an emphasis on those in 1A. Collins said that 64 percent of those in 1A group received at least one dose of a vaccine.
COVID-19 by the numbers New Mexico health officials yesterday reported 281 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the statewide total so far to 181,332. The health department has designated 125,064 of those cases as recovered. Bernalillo County had 120 new cases, followed by Doña Ana County with 49 and San Juan County with 22. Santa Fe County had 10 new cases. The state also announced 12 additional deaths; there have now been 3,562 fatalities statewide. As of yesterday, 280 people were hospitalized with COVID-19. As New Mexico approaches the one-year mark for the state s first cases, SFR spoke with Human Services Secretary Dr. David Scrase about the last 12 months of the pandemic and how the state has fared. When we look at the pandemic, we think of the number of cases and hospitalizations and all that, Scrase says, but I think mainly of the fact that people in high-income census tracts had one quarter the chance of getting COVID as people in low-income census tracts.