Quay remains in red, but positivity rates down

A third neighboring county, San Miguel, landed in the green or yellow zone in the latest COVID-19 risk assessments announced last week by the New Mexico Department of Health.

Quay County again failed to advance out of the red zone but nearly halved its test-positivity rates during the assessment period from Jan. 12 to Jan. 25.

San Miguel County joined two of Quay County’s neighbors, Harding and Union counties, in the yellow or green zones that loosen some health restrictions, including the allowance of 25% occupancy of indoor dining for counties in the yellow zone. Indoor dining is not allowed in red-zone counties.

Sparsely populated Harding County remained New Mexico’s only county in the green zone after it had not reported a confirmed case of coronavirus in more than a month.

Other counties that improved into the yellow zone were Colfax, Los Alamos, Socorro, Sierra and Grant counties.

Quay County’s test positivity rates improved from 12.88% during the previous two-week period to a 6.56% rate reported Wednesday. Its threshold to go into the yellow zone is 5%.

Its daily case rate per 100,000 saw more modest improvement — from 28.9 to 25.5. The desired benchmark is 8 daily cases per 100,000 people.

The next assessment will be announced on Feb. 10.

The number of New Mexico counties that climbed into the yellow or green zones quadrupled from the previous period — from two to eight. That reflects a marked downturn trend statewide in the number of COVID-19 cases in recent weeks.

The DOH reported two-thirds of the state’s counties are on the cusp of being in the yellow zone. A total of 28 of 33 counties improved their per-capita rates, and 29 improved their test-positivity rates.

Lincoln, Luna and Taos counties worsened in both test positivity and per-capita rates.