Virus hospitalizations in New Mexico drop, but fewer people getting latest vaccine
Oct. 7—Hospitalizations of patients with COVID-19 have plateaued in New Mexico, with the dominant omicron variants causing milder symptoms than some previous strains, acting state Health Secretary Dr. David Scrase said Thursday.
He attributed the "generally good" news on the virus to vaccinations and more widely available treatments.
Still, he said at an afternoon news conference, the numbers of New Mexicans who have received the new omicron booster are lower than those of previous COVID-19 vaccine rollouts.
As of Thursday, a little more than 70,000 New Mexicans had received the shot since early September, amounting to 5.5 percent of eligible adults.
"We have known for a long time that interest in vaccines has some relationship to case counts," Scrase said. "... The omicron booster first came out at a time when case counts were dropping. Some people respond when the threat, for them, seems more real."
He encouraged all eligible New Mexicans to get the booster, which guards against the prevalent omicron strains.
Omicron BA.5 has been the dominant coronavirus variant infecting New Mexicans since mid-June. It is also currently the dominant variant recorded in cases nationally.
"This is the vaccine specifically targeted to the version of the virus we're in right now," Scrase said of the booster. "We've been saying we hope one day coronavirus vaccines are an annual event. ... We're on our way now — I hope — to an annual or periodic vaccine for whatever is circulating in the community most recently, which is exactly what the flu shot is."
The Department of Health has moved away from focusing on case counts and turned instead to numbers of COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths.
Data the agency posted Thursday showed 86 hospitalizations, with eight patients on ventilators, down from 136 patients on ventilators in December. The pandemic's total death toll in the state is at 8,590.
"We're not quite back down," Scrase said, "but it does confirm what we thought early on with BA.4 and BA.5 — while they spread more easily; they appear to cause less severe disease."
While COVID-19 has tended to surge in the wintertime, Scrase said it isn't yet clear what the coming season will bring.
Acting State Epidemiologist Laura Parajon said the department also will be watching the spread of other communicable diseases like influenza and the common cold for higher rates of illness in the coming months.
"Tracking flu and other flu-like illnesses, we haven't seen any uptick in that currently, but we are tracking and expecting a rise in flu," she said.
