◆ Number of deaths from virus remains high due to reporting lag, state health officials say.

Doctors expect a decline in numbers in early February

Health officials in New Mexico said they hope to see the number of people hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19 and dying begin to wane soon, in line with a steadily dropping daily caseload.

During a joint news conference Monday, hospital leaders noted hospitalizations and deaths remain high in the state, compared to new daily cases of the novel coronavirus, despite signs of abatement in the virus’ spread — largely due to a days- or weekslong lag in the development of a severe illness following a positive test result.

New Mexico Human Secretary Dr. David Scrase, in a separate online talk Monday, said there can be as much as a four-week lag from the drop in the daily case count and a notable decline in deaths.

“We’re anticipating now that we might start to see easing up of those death rates ... toward the end of the first week in February,” Scrase said.

New Mexico logged 494 cases Monday, the lowest daily number since mid-October, when the fall and winter surge was building momentum and peaked at 3,600 cases in mid-November.

After that, the surge subsided and then rebounded in what health authorities called a holiday spike due to increased travel and family gatherings.

Hospitalizations have begun to decline too, although not as sharply as recent data suggests.

The state has 435 hospitalizations posted on its COVID-19 public dashboard, an abrupt drop from 627 on Saturday. But officials said the number was incomplete due to some hospitals having technical problems.

“Some facilities have experienced difficulties in reporting hospitalization numbers in the last few days, leading to a disruption in the state’s reporting,” Jim Walton, state Department of Health spokesman, wrote in an email.

Generally, when it comes to reporting, positivity rates fall first, then hospitalizations two weeks later, then deaths two weeks after that, said Dr. Vesta Sandoval, chief medical officer at Lovelace Health System, during the morning news conference with other doctors from the state’s largest hospitals.

“It’s exactly the way we observed it during the first wave, and it’s replicating now with the second wave,” Sandoval said.

The doctors also discussed the availabil

ity of monoclonal antibodies, a treatment the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved in November that has shown a high success rate. People who test positive for COVID-19 and are either 65 or over or have a severe medical condition can receive the treatment, the doctors said.

The laboratory-made proteins mimic the immune system’s ability to fend off pathogens, including viruses.

Bamlanivimab, a monoclonal antibody, is specifically designed to block the novel coronavirus from entering human cells.

Ben Carson, former secretary of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, claims a monoclonal cocktail saved his life. Rudy Giuliani, who also contracted the virus, credited the cocktail with his recovery.

“I can safely say that the supply is quite available,” said Dr. David Gonzales, chief medical officer at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.

People who qualify should go to the Health Department website, which is linked to a national database that can point them to a site to get the treatment, Sandoval said.

Research shows the treatments have prevented 75 percent of the recipients who were likely to be hospitalized from being admitted, Sandoval said.

Dr. David Pitcher, executive physician at the University of New Mexico Health System, said people still should sign up for vaccines.

“Vaccination is the ticket out of this pandemic,” Pitcher said. “The sooner we can get vaccinated, the sooner we can return to a more normal life.”