COVID cases continue to decrease in Taos County
Second round of booster shots approved by FDA
The COVID-19 case rate has decreased again throughout Taos County (cases per 100,000 people per week) this past week. The county saw nine new cases in the past week, compared to six cases the week before, according to Town of Taos GIS Analyst Tim Corner. Meanwhile, cases continued to decline across the state and the country as well.
“Under the CDC Community Levels system, which accounts for COVID hospital bed utilization and COVID admissions as well as transmission rate, the whole of New Mexico is considered to be at a low level,” said Corner in an email. “Taos County is considered to be at a moderate level of transmission, below 50 cases per 100,000 per week.”
In Taos County, the seven-dayaverage daily case count has plateaued at approximately 144 cases per week, compared to 140 the previous week. The total number of cases in the county is now at 5,303 since the beginning of the pandemic. 5,147 patients in Taos County are reported to have recovered from the virus.
No additional deaths were reported among Taos County residents in the past week, leaving the total number of deaths at 89. There have been 16 COVID-related deaths in Taos County in 2022. The last person to die of COVID in the county was a woman in her 70s who had underlying conditions.
While COVID cases decrease, experts say the virus is still circulating in communities globally, with the BA.2 variant of Omicron now the main cause of all new cases in the U.S.
Recently, vaccine companies Pfizer and Moderna have received FDA approval to begin offering a second round of booster shots for those over 50 years old (at least four months after their previous booster dose).
The New Mexico Department of Health reports that the state has seen more than 517,000 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March 2020, with a death toll of 7,234. The CDC reports that more than 975,000 people have died in the U.S. due to COVID-19, and is reporting there are approximately 11,000 COVID hospitalizations nationwide.
Taos County residents (aged 18+) remain 89 percent fully vaccinated, 99 percent partially vaccinated, and 59 percent boosted, according to Corner. For the state as a whole, 78 percent are fully vaccinated, 92 percent are partially vaccinated and 45 percent have received a booster shot. For younger New Mexicans (aged 12–17), 62 percent are fully vaccinated and 71 percent are partially vaccinated. Thirty-one percent of children aged 5-11 have been fully vaccinated and 39 percent have been partially vaccinated.