New Mexico COVID-19 cases begin to plateau

A summer surge in COVID-19 led to around 84,000 reported new cases in the last four months, but our state’s Department of Health says cases are beginning to level off.Our state is entering a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.Dr. David Scrase said, “Hospitalizations and deaths are clearly in a plateau phase. Much of the population got vaccinated, and oral treatments are available. We have a higher tolerance now for caseloads.”From September to October, new cases have plateaued with only seven thousand, but Scrase said the focus isn’t on quantity anymore.”One thousand cases of the delta variant will cause way more hospitalizations and deaths than one thousand cases a BA.5. So we’re keeping a closer eye on hospitalizations and deaths,” Scrase said.Scrase said omicron and BA.5 are the dominant variants of COVID-19 in our state. Recently our state began rolling out a new booster shot that’s available for people 12 and older.”The BA.5 spread to more people but causes less severe disease. So, our hospitals have not been overcrowded. We’re up to about 70,000 boosters in the first four weeks of administration. Everything for the past nine months has been omicron. This is the vaccine that specifically targeted against the version of the virus we’re in right now,” Scrase said.Scrase says that although cases have plateaued, our state could see a change soon in the fall or winter. We saw spikes during the last two winters.”Pandemics of all respiratory pandemics evolve into a sort of annual cycle that tends to be higher than winter. We might have a surge, and we might see a dip, I can’t tell you, but we have hope. We don’t have certainty,” Scrase said.The Department of Health also reports that 85 percent of New Mexico counties are low transmission areas.