Update: I’m happy to report that my concern about private labs not reporting positives was in error. It’s not that private labs aren’t showing positives, it’s just that they use a different keyword. The state lab uses “Detected”, privates actually use the word “Positive.” So I re-ran the numbers with that in mind and see private labs are in line with the state. Whew.
Too good to be true? In connection with my role in a public health reporting contractor serving the New Mexico Department of Health, I've been tracking the numbers reported on their website http://cv.nmhealth.org as to whether New Mexico is staying ahead of the COVID-19 curve. So here are numbers for the positives, the totals, and the percent increase of positives vs. totals in recent days:
03/17 Positive 23 Total 1,272 -
03/18 Positive 28 Total 2,354 0.5%
03/19 Positive 35 Total 2,797 1.6%
03/20 Positive 43 Total 3,814 0.8%
03/21 Positive 57 Total 4,779 1.5%
03/22 Positive 65 Total 5,386 1.3%
Compared to other areas of the country, the fact that the rate of new positives vs. tests hasn't gone above this 1 to 2% range, on the surface, looks encouraging. However, I wouldn't use that to assume that NM has pounded the curve into submission just yet. From what I've seen from our internal data so far, it appears that our state's Scientific Lab Division, using the tests sanctioned by the CDC, appears to have produced the only positive results. Over the past week-plus, the largest local service TriCore has massively ramped up its testing, often using drive up services. Other national players like Mayo, Quest and Labcorp have produced results but they too have no positives.
So that's what I'm curious about: why haven't the private labs produced any positive results? Having zero positives out of 3,400 plus doesn't quite look right. Is TriCore’s methodogy different? Or is it that the state lab is more precisely targeting testing candidates. No idea but I’ll start asking around over the upcoming work week.
Otherwise I’ve been trying to help with NMDOH’s early detection process. Basically am looking for how many patients are presenting themselves day-to-day with flu-like symptoms at what facilities. There are some ICD-10 diagnostic that can be quite useful for that purpose. To detect more late stage episodes I’m looking at ARDS, acute resipiratory distress syndrome which may predict imminent deaths. Luckily we don’t have any reported yet, though there have been a handful of hospitalizations.
In any event, it’s an honor to publish in this group and share our experiences with other states. I will be catching up on the other state diaries here to better inform myself.