COVID-19 Update 12 July 2021

COVID-19 Update 12 July 2021

The next planned update is scheduled for next Monday.

The comparisons shown for the past “week” are from Tuesday, July 7 to Monday, July 12.

SALEM:

Salem since last update: NO new cases
Total: 2,977 confirmed cases in Salem
Salem has less than 5 active cases. We have less than 5 active cases daily since June 28.
1 out of every 10 Salem residents has been infected.
Salem’s new cases per 100K for 14 days: Rate not calculated.
Salem’s Positivity Rate for the past 2 weeks: ZERO!

NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Active cases rose by 44 to 197.
13 more people were admitted to the hospital because of COVID-19 this week, half as many as last week’s 26. 3 more were admitted to the ICU.
2 more deaths were reported since the last update.
Total NH individuals fully vaccinated: About 55%. (See below why this isn’t stated with full confidence.)
15 NH residents have been identified to have the Delta variant.

On Wednesday, July 07, 2021, DHHS announced 31 new positive test results for COVID-19. Today’s results include 8 people who tested positive by PCR test and 23 who tested positive by antigen test. There are now 195 current COVID-19 cases diagnosed in New Hampshire. [New cases: Rockingham County: 3 (9.7%); Salem: 0 (0%)]

On Thursday, July 08, 2021, DHHS announced 36 new positive test results for COVID-19. Today’s results include 18 people who tested positive by PCR test and 18 who tested positive by antigen test. There are now 212 current COVID-19 cases diagnosed in New Hampshire. [Rockingham County: 5 (13.9%); Salem: 0 (0%)]

On Friday, July 09, 2021, DHHS announced 30 new positive test results for COVID-19. Today’s results include 21 people who tested positive by PCR test and 9 who tested positive by antigen test. There are now 210 current COVID-19 cases diagnosed in New Hampshire. [Rockingham County: 6 (20%); Salem: 0 (0%)]

On Monday, July 12, 2021, DHHS announced 17 new positive test results for COVID-19 for Sunday, July 11. Today’s results include 12 people who tested positive by PCR test and 5 who tested positive by antigen test. DHHS also announced 37 cases from Friday, July 9 (23 by PCR test and 14 by antigen test), and 25 cases from Saturday, July 10 (16 by PCR test and 9 by antigen test). There are now 197 current COVID-19 cases diagnosed in New Hampshire. [Rockingham County: 21 (24.3%); Salem: 0 (0%)]

Each day, DHHS says that “Several cases are still under investigation. Additional information from ongoing investigations will be incorporated into future COVID-19 updates.” Percentages shown are % of new cases.

• • • • • • TODAY’S SUMMARY • • • • • •

There were NO more Salem residents were diagnosed with COVID-19 this week. This leaves our total at 2,977 Salem residents who have had confirmed case of COVID-19.
Salem’s active cases remains at somewhere between 1 and 4 total cases. We have been at this level since Tuesday, June 8, except for one day: On Friday, June 25, we crept up to 6, but came down again by the next Monday. We can’t seem to get back to zero, but we are back to where we were in late September before things skyrocketed.
Salem’s new cases for the past two weeks per 100K residents has been too low to report since June 1. Today, we reached ZERO!
Salem’s positivity rate for PCR & antigen results in the past week is unknown. DHHS says “Data Suppressed: This metric is not currently available at the town level.” Salem’s positivity rate was up to 14.3% on Dec. 14.
There are 10 NH communities with a positivity rate of more than 0. (9 a week ago). There are 3 communities with a positivity rate higher than 2%. (3 a week ago). 3 communities have more than 5% (2 a week ago). 1 community (Berlin) has a positivity rate of more than 10%. (16.3%)
NH has added 144 new cases in the past week (6 days). (171 new cases the week before = 8 days.) NH reported 126 more people have “recovered” since my last update (143 last week). After allowing for those who lost their lives because of COVID-19, NH’s number of active cases went down by up by 16 since my last report, to 197.
When things reached the low point for active cases last fall, we got down to 209 on Sept 4. We have been below that since June 9, except for this past Thursday (212) and Friday (210). We were able to get down to 155, on June 28.
Rockingham is now at 44 active cases, an increase of 9 since last week.
NH has had 26.3 new cases per 100K residents in the past 14 days. One week ago, it was 22.9.
NH’s positivity rate for PCR & antigen results in the past week is 1.0%. One week ago, it was also 1.0%.
DHHS is reporting a total of 1,606 people who have been hospitalized because of COVID-19, an increase of 13 since last week. A total of 348 Rockingham County residents have been hospitalized because of COVID-19, which is 7 more than what DHHS reported last week.
The number of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 15 which is 2 more than we had one week ago. We were down to 6 on Sept 12, before things starting escalating. More recently, we were down to 12 on Wednesday, July 7.
The total number of ICU admissions is 478, an increase of 3 ICU admissions in the past week.
The hospital dashboard has not been updated since June 9. On July 6, 18.5% of all ICU units were available. One the 9^th, it was down to 13.1%. The 86.9% of ICU beds being occupied include COVID patients, as well as other medical emergencies. Ventilators available went from 81.0% to 81.9% in that same timeframe, so that, at least, is good news.
There have been 2 deaths in the past week, bringing the total to 1,375 people who have died in NH due to COVID-19. There has been a total of 267 lives lost in Rockingham County; which is one more than last week.

• • • • • COMMUNITIES • • • • • •

DHHS reports that the new cases this week reside in the following counties and NH’s two major cities:

Belknap: 8
Carroll: 5
Cheshire: 12
Coos: 29
Grafton: 9
Manchester: 7
Merrimack: 11
Nashua: 10
Rest of Hillsborough excluding Manchester and Nashua: 25
Rockingham: 35
Strafford: 2
Sullivan: 2

The county of residence is being determined for 21 new cases. Several cases are still under investigation. Additional information from ongoing investigations will be incorporated into future COVID-19 updates.

• • • • • COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION • • • • • •

Changes in cases per 100K residents:
- NH (+3.4)
- Belknap (+8.1)
- Carroll (-8.2)
- Cheshire (+7.9)
- Coos (+95.1)
- Grafton (+1.1)
- Manchester (+3.6)
- Merrimack (+2.6)
- Nashua (+3.4)
- Rest of Hillsborough excluding Manchester and Nashua (+9.7)
- Rockingham (+0.9)
- Strafford (-8.5)
- Sullivan (-25.5)
Coos County was the lowest last week at 9.5; and 3.2 the week before. They added 30 new cases this week, (15 in just Berlin), which brought their new cases per 100K to 104.6 and their positivity rate to 16.3%.
Changes in positivity rate:
- NH: Unchanged; still 1.0%
- Belknap: 1.20% (-1.6%)
- Carroll: 0.50% (-0.2%)
- Cheshire: 1.10% (0.4%)
- Coos: 7.10% (5.8%)
- Grafton: 0.60% (0.2%)
- Manchester: 1.00% (0.1%)
- Merrimack: 0.90% (0.0%)
- Nashua: 1.10% (-1.1%)
- Rest of Hillsborough excluding Manchester and Nashua: 1.30% (0.7%)
- Rockingham: 1.40% (0.1%)
- Strafford: 0.20% (-0.7%)
- Sullivan: 0.70% (-0.9%)

• • • • • ACTIVE CASES • • • • • •

NH has 197 active cases.
At 44, Rockingham County has the most active cases of any county, except for Hillsborough County, which has 53 cases, with 15 in Nashua, and 11 in Manchester.
All counties have active cases:
- Belknap: 13 (-7)
- Carroll: 5 (-5)
- Cheshire: 9 (1)
- Coos: 26 (23)
- Grafton: 9 (2)
- Manchester: 11 (2)
- Merrimack: 11 (-3)
- Nashua: 15 (-6)
- Rest of Hillsborough: 27 (12)
- Rockingham: 44 (9)
- Strafford: 4 (-13)
- Sullivan: 5 (0)
10 communities have 5 or more active cases: Nashua (15); Berlin (12); Manchester (11); Lancaster (10); Hudson (8); Goffstown (7); Derry (6); Raymond (6); Londonderry (5), and Portsmouth (5). All others are down to less than 5 active cases.

• • • • • • DIAGNOSTIC TESTS IN NH • • • • • •

Total people who have tested positive: 99,770
New positive cases by my math: 144
New positive cases per DHHS: 192

• • • • • • ROCKINGHAM COUNTY (22.78% of NH’s population) • • • • • •

Total people who have tested positive: 24,465
New positive cases: 35
Percentage of today’s new positive cases: 24.3%
Positivity rate: 1.4% (1.3% last week)

• • • • • • CHANGES BY AGES • • • • • •

68 children under 18 are included in this week’s new cases.
35.4% of new cases announced by DHHS this week are kids under 18 years old.
Under 60: 124 new cases; 2 hospitalizations, 0 deaths
60+: 20 new cases; 11 hospitalizations; 2 deaths

(Totals showing changes since my last report, which was last Monday.)

0-9: 6% of Total cases: 5650 (+22); Hospitalizations: 11; Deaths: 0
10-19: 13% of Total cases: 12500 (+21); Hospitalizations: 10; Deaths: 0
20-29: 20% of Total cases: 20001 (+20); Hospitalizations: 34; Deaths: 1
30-39: 15% of Total cases: 14678 (+19); Hospitalizations: 67; Deaths: 7
40-49: 13% of Total cases: 13111 (+26); Hospitalizations: 114; Deaths: 12
50-59: 15% of Total cases: 15220 (+16); Hospitalizations: 225 (+2); Deaths: 35
60-69: 10% of Total cases: 9764 (+12); Hospitalizations: 369 (+3); Deaths: 141 (+2)
70-79: 5% of Total cases: 4817 (+1); Hospitalizations: 402 (+3); Deaths: 329
80+: 4% of Total cases: 3966 (+7); Hospitalizations: 374(+5); Deaths: 850
Unknown: 0% of Total cases: 63 (+0); Hospitalizations: 0; Deaths: 0

• • • • • • ACTIVE CASES • • • • • •

Active cases in NH: 197
Active cases in Rockingham County: 44

• • • • • • RECOVERED • • • • • •

Total recovered: 98,198
Recovered this week: 126
Percentage of diagnosed cases that have recovered: 98.4%

• • • • • • HOSPITALIZATIONS IN NH • • • • • •

Currently hospitalized: 15
New people hospitalized from NH: 13
Total hospitalized patients: 1,606
Percentage of those who have been infected that have been hospitalized: 1.61%
Total admitted to ICU: 478
New hospitalized patients from Rockingham County: 7 since last week
Total hospitalized patients from Rockingham County: 348

• • • • • • DEATHS IN NH • • • • • •

Total fatalities in NH associated with COVID-19: 1,373
Lives lost this week: 2
Persons over 60 years of age who died this week: 2
Persons under 60 years of age who died this week: 0
NH Residents diagnosed with COVID-19 that died: 1.38%
Lives lost in Rockingham County this week: 1
Total lives lost in Rockingham County: 267

These are not simply numbers. We must not forget that these are all someone’s husband or wife, mother or father, sister or brother, son or daughter, friend or neighbor.

Hello, Salem!

Here are some random thoughts from this past week:

Vaccinations:

NH DHHS reported vaccination info on Tuesday, July 6). They report that 814,037 (59.9%) people are partially vaccinated and 729,838 (53.7%) are fully vaccinated. That full report is here. A new update will likely be reported tomorrow evening. Their Vaccine Dashboard, updated today, says 817,033 (60.2.) and 747,865 (55.1%). On Monday, June 28, the dashboard reported 824,555 (60.8%) were partially vaccinated, and 730,753 (53.9%) were fully vaccinated.

I’m not comfortable with these numbers — there is no explanation as to why the partially vaccinated numbers have decreased — but am including this section as requested.

CDC reported today that 99% of the COVID hospitalizations in June and 99% of the COVID deaths in June were from people who were unvaccinated.

Outbreaks in NH:

NH DHHS reported institutional outbreaks on Thursday, July 8. Birch Healthcare Center in Rochester is no longer listed. Laconia Rehabilitation Center is the only outbreak reported; now affecting 10 residents and 2 staff.

All other outbreaks, which can be seen here, were closed as of the 8th.

Variants:

On July 8 or 9, WMUR reported the following:

Total individuals fully vaccinated: 746,945 (55.1% of NH population)
Number of B.1.1.7 variant (Alpha; UK) cases: 1,142
Number of B.1.351 variant (Beta; South Africa) cases: 1
Number of P.1 variant (Gamma; Brazil) cases: 180
Number of B.1.617.2 variant (Delta; India) cases: 15
Number of B.1.427 & B.1.429 variant (Epsilon; California) cases: 106
Number of MIS-C cases: 1-24 (per CDC)

The CDC says, “Viruses constantly change through mutation. A variant has one or more mutations that differentiate it from other variants in circulation. As expected, multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2 have been documented in the United States and globally throughout this pandemic. To inform local outbreak investigations and understand national trends, scientists compare genetic differences between viruses to identify variants and how they are related to each other.”

The WHO considers a new mutation a “variant of interest” if it has genetic changes that affect virus characteristics (like how transmissible it is or how it affects disease severity) and if it has led to significant community transmission or clusters.

CDC breaks the variants into three classifications:

Variant of Interest (VOI)– There are currently 7 VOI’s in the United States that are being monitored and characterized. Two originated from CA, and one from NY.
Variant of Concern (VOC)– There are currently 4 VOC’s in the United States that are being closely monitored and characterized by federal agencies. This list includes the Delta variant, which is now the dominant strain in the US.
Variant of High Consequence (VOHC) – Currently there are no SARS-CoV-2 variants that rise to the level of high consequence

The newest variant, Lambda (C.37), is not listed in the CDC’s list, but was designated as a VOI by the WHO on June 14. This is the dominant strain in Peru, where a 9.3% case fatality ratio is observed. (Symptoms of the Lambda variant seem to be the usual Covid symptoms such as cough, high fever, the loss is taste or smell, body pain, and uneasiness in breathing.)

“Lambda carries a few mutations that might make it more transmissible, and that could make it more resistant to neutralizing antibodies, the WHO stated. It has at least seven different mutations to the spike protein, which the coronavirus uses to attach to cells in the body. However, it’s not totally clear yet what those changes mean in terms of the variants’ ability to spread or make people particularly sick.”

“As the WHO noted: “There is currently limited evidence on the full extent of the impact associated with these genomic changes.” So while health experts definitely know that lambda is different, they’re not quite sure what the practical implications of that are at this point.” (Huffpost)

The World Health Organization’s director-general has warned that places with low vaccination rates may be so overrun with variants by the time vaccines reach them, the shots won’t be as effective at preventing spread. Variant outbreaks are getting so bad in Australia and South Korea, the countries are tightening lockdowns and safety measures in some of their most populated areas. (CNN)

“That’s why it’s so important to slow the spread of the virus as much as possible at least until enough people can be vaccinated to break the chains of transmission. As long as the Covid-19 coronavirus remains so widespread, unvaccinated people can serve as “variant factories.” (Forbes)

15 people in NH have been identified to have the Delta variant.

Concerns continue to grow for the Delta variant of COVID-19.

Some of the symptoms of the new Delta variant are different than the traditional COVID-19 symptoms. They can include:

Sore throat
Runny nose or congestion
Fever
Headaches
Stomach pain
Loss of appetite
Vomiting
Nausea
Joint pain
Hearing loss
Diarrhea
Small blood clots

Additional suggested reading:

How dangerous is the new Delta Plus variant? Here’s what we know.
The latest coronavirus variant has spread to about a dozen countries—including India, the U.S., and the U.K.—while scientists scramble to figure out if the strain is more deadly or transmissible.

Should You Get A Pfizer Or Moderna COVID-19 Booster If You Had The Johnson & Johnson Shot? Here’s what experts think about mixing vaccines and if there’s a need for an extra dose with the delta coronavirus variant.

I plan to be back with another update next Monday night. In the meantime, stay safe, and always, be kind.

~Bonnie