COVID-19 Update 16 June 2021

COVID-19 Update 16 June 2021

Tonight, I’m announcing a change in the update schedule: I’ll be continuing the daily updates through Friday, after which I plan to switch to weekly updates starting on Monday. More in my message, below.

SALEM: NO CHANGES!

Total: 2,966 confirmed cases in Salem
Salem since last update: 0 new cases
Salem has had less than 5 active cases per day since June 2!!!
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: Data suppressed.
Salem’s new cases account for 0.0% of all the new cases reported today. (Salem has 2.2% of NH’s population.)

NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Slight decrease in Active Cases (-14)
4 new hospitalized patients since yesterday
4 more people were admitted to the ICU
No more cumulative death since yesterday

On Wednesday, June 16, 2021, DHHS announced 25 new positive test results for COVID-19. Today’s results include 20 people who tested positive by PCR test and 5 who tested positive by antigen test. There are now 269 current COVID-19 cases diagnosed in New Hampshire.

Several cases are still under investigation. Additional information from ongoing investigations will be incorporated into future COVID-19 updates.

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

Salem has added 0 new cases since my last report, leaving our total at 2,966 Salem residents who have had confirmed case of COVID-19.
Salem’s active cases remains at somewhere between 1 and 4 total cases since Tuesday, June 8. We are back to where we were in late September before things skyrocketed.
Salem’s new cases per 100K residents is too low to report. DHHS says “Rate Not Calculated: For towns with cumulative cases between 1-4 in the last 14 days, data limited to protect the privacy of individuals.” It has been this low since Tuesday, June 1.
Salem’s positivity rate for PCR & antigen results in the past week is too low to report. DHHS says, “Data Suppressed: This metric is not currently available at the town level.” It has been this low since Tuesday, June 1. Salem’s positivity rate was up to 14.3% on Dec. 14.
There are 11 NH communities with a positivity rate of more than 0. (17 a week ago). There are5 communities with a positivity rate higher than 2%. (15 a week ago). 1communities has more than 5% (4 a week ago). 1 community has a positivity rate of more than 10%. (2 a week ago.)
Today the new cases “by math” (last report vs. today’s cumulative total of positive cases as reported by DHHS) was 18. NH reported 32 people have “recovered” since my last update. After allowing for those who lost their lives because of COVID-19, NH’s number of active cases went down by 14 since my last report to 269..That’s 76 fewer active cases than we had a week ago. NH has added 156 new cases in the past week.
We are now down to fewer active cases than we had on September 10; we were as low as 209 on September 4.
NH has had 43.6 new cases per 100K residents in the past 14 days. One week ago, it was 50.2.
NH’s positivity rate for PCR & antigen results in the past week is 1.3%. One week ago, it was 5.0%.
DHHS is reporting a total of 1,551 people who have been hospitalized as of today because of COVID-19. This is anincrease of 4 people since my last update, and an increase of 20 since last week. There was 1 hospitalization reportedfrom Rockingham County since my last report; our county’s total hospitalization count is 344.
The number of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 18 which is 2 less than the last report and 11 less than we had one week ago.
We now have fewer hospital patients than we had on October 23. We were as low as 6 in late August and again on September 12.
The cumulative total of ICU admissions increased by 4 since my last update; the total number of ICU admissions is 457. We have seen an increase of 10 ICU admissions in the past seven days.
Since my last report, no lives were lost due to COVID-19, keeping the total at 1,364 people who have died in NH due to COVID-19. We have lost 4 people in NH due to COVID-19 in the past week. There has been no lives lost in Rockingham County; the total number of people who have died from our county is 264..

• • • • • COMMUNITIES • • • • • •

DHHS reports that the new cases reside in the following counties:
Strafford (5), Rockingham (4), Belknap (2), Hillsborough County other than Manchester and Nashua (2), Carroll (1), and Merrimack (1) counties, and in the cities of Manchester (5) and Nashua (3). The county of residence is being determined for two new cases.
Only 13 NH communities have five or more active cases of COVID-19: Manchester (38); Rochester (25); Nashua (22); Concord (16); Dover (12); Claremont and Laconia (7); Merrimack (6); Hudson, Keene, Londonderry, Milton and Unity (5).
There is still an active case in every NH County, ranging from 3 in Coos County to 86 in Hillsborough County, which has 38 active cases in Manchester, 22 in Nashua and 26 in the rest of the county.
There were no new cases reported today in Cheshire, Coos, Grafton or Sullivan counties.

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

New positive cases by my math: 18
New positive cases per DHHS: 25
Total people who have tested positive: 99,196

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

Total cases in Rockingham County: 24,320
New cases in Rockingham County: 4
Rockingham County’s percentage of new cases: 16.0%
Rockingham County Positivity Rate: 0.8%

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

6 children under 18 are included in today’s new cases.
24.0% of new cases announced by DHHS today are kids under 18 years old.

(Totals showing changes since my last report.)

0-9: 6% of Total cases: 5580 (+5); Hospitalizations: 10; Deaths: 0
10-19: 13% of Total cases: 12398 (+1); Hospitalizations: 11; Deaths: 0
20-29: 20% of Total cases: 19914 (+0); Hospitalizations: 32; Deaths: 1
30-39: 15% of Total cases: 14584 (+3); Hospitalizations: 65; Deaths: 7
40-49: 13% of Total cases: 13030 (+2); Hospitalizations: 114 (+1); Deaths: 12
50-59: 15% of Total cases: 15144 (+5); Hospitalizations: 219 (+1); Deaths: 35
60-69: 10% of Total cases: 9718 (+1); Hospitalizations: 365 (+1); Deaths: 138
70-79: 5% of Total cases: 4798 (+0); Hospitalizations: 383; Deaths: 326
80+: 4% of Total cases: 3941 (+1); Hospitalizations: 352 (+1); Deaths: 845
Unknown: 0% of Total cases: 89 (+0); Hospitalizations: 0; Deaths: 0

• • • • • • ACTIVE CASES • • • • • •

Active cases in NH: 269
Active cases in Rockingham County: 31

• • • • • • RECOVERED • • • • • •

Recovered today: 32
Total recovered: 97,563
Percentage of diagnosed cases that have recovered: 98.4%

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

Currently hospitalized: 18
New people hospitalized from NH: 4
Total hospitalized patients: 1,551
Percentage of those who have been infected that have been hospitalized: 1.56%
Total admitted to ICU: 457
New hospitalized patients from Rockingham County: 1
Total hospitalized patients from Rockingham County: 344

• • • • • • DEATHS IN NH • • • • • •

Lives lost today: 0
Persons over 60 years of age who died today: 0
Persons under 60 years of age who died today: 0
Total fatalities in NH associated with COVID-19: 1,364
NH Residents diagnosed with COVID-19 that died: 1.38%
Lives lost in Rockingham County today: 0
Total lives lost in Rockingham County: 264

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!

Most of our COVID-19 numbers are either flat or are going down. The daily updates are starting to look the same; hopefully our numbers will continue in the current trajectoryAs Chaucer wrote, almost 650 years ago, “All good things must come to an end,” and it looks like it’s time to say goodbye to the DAILY updates.

Here’s my plan: I’m going to continue with the daily updates through Friday. Since NH Department of Health and Human Services is no longer publishing their statistics on Saturday and Sunday, there won’t be fresh info on those days. So I’m planning to do an update on Monday, although my intention is to make that the first WEEKLY update.

When I started this project, I thought this would be a 4–6-week project. The people of Salem were looking for information about COVID-19. We knew we were one of the hardest hit communities, but we didn’t know how bad it was. Our town officials weren’t answering our questions, so I stepped up, dug around and got some answers. I did my first report on April 8, 2020. I did them daily, missing only Christmas, and then this past weekend. Friday will be my 438^th update out of the previous 441 days. It’s been a labor of love.

But, with our decreasing numbers, I’ve been questioning how much longer I should continue these updates. And, after having a two-day break over the weekend, I’m finding it harder to keep going. With life starting to get busier, I’m ready to reclaim my evenings.

Preparing these reports been challenging. Collecting the data, processing the data, analyzing the data, and then trying to put it into a cohesive, intelligible report takes 3+ hours per day. There have been many days when I wanted to stop. However, many of you sent encouraging messages, and kept me going. Thanks for all the kind words.

I will continue to watch our numbers, at least for a while. Hopefully there won’t be a need to reconsider a more frequent report in the future.

Take care, my friends. Stay safe, and always, be kind.

~Bonnie