COVID-19 Update December 22

COVID-19 Update December 22

Total: 1,269 confirmed cases in Salem
Salem’s Positivity Rate for the past 2 weeks: 13.6%
1 out of 23 Salem residents have been infected
Salem today: 18 new cases since yesterday; 208 active cases

• • • • • • Report from NH Department of Health and Human Services (NH DHHS) • • • • • •

From today’s Press Release from NH DHHS: “On Tuesday, December 22, 2020, DHHS announced 624 new positive test results for COVID-19, for a daily PCR test positivity rate of 5.9%. Today’s results include 484 people who tested positive by PCR test and 140 who tested positive by antigen test. There are now 6,485 current COVID-19 cases diagnosed in New Hampshire. Of the results reported today:

12/17: 107 new cases today, for an updated total of 854 cases
12/18: 118 new cases today, for an updated total of 652 cases
12/19: 3 new cases today, for an updated total of 622 cases
12/20: 69 new cases today, for an updated total of 506 cases
12/21: 327 new cases

Test results for previous days are still being processed and the total number of new positives for those days are not yet complete. Updated case counts for prior days will be reflected on the COVID-19 interactive dashboard.”

• • • • • • Community Transmission • • • • • •

Average Positivity Rate over 7 days:
- New Hampshire: 9.2%
- Rockingham County: 11.2%
- Salem: 13.6%
- Manchester: 11.8%
- Nashua: 11.2
- 27 communities have a positivity rate higher than Salem.
- 57 communities have a positivity rate of more than 10%.
- 120 communities have a positivity rate of more than 5%.
- 129 communities have a positivity rate of more than 2%.

• • • • • • TODAY’S SPOTLIGHT • • • • • •

Today Salem had the smallest number of new cases than we’ve seen in 9 days. Today was also NH’s smallest number of new cases since December 4.
With 5,403 people who have “recovered” in the past week, including 823 people today, it is not surprising that the number of active cases in Salem has gone down.
Manchester has now had more than 6,000 people with infections since the start of the pandemic. Hillsborough County, excluding Manchester and Nashua, has also passed 6,000.
Over 450,000 negative results have been reported in NH.
For the second day in a row, NH DHHS reports that no new people were hospitalized during the 24-hour period covered by this report. However, also like yesterday, the number of patients currently hospitalized has increased; this time by 19 patients is 297, the highest it has ever been.
In the past week, we have added 11 more patients to the hospital census than we had a weeks ago, but we had had 26 new people added to the total number of people who have been hospitalized in that same timeframe.
The number of patients currently hospitalized
Happily, for the second day in a row, no one died in the 24-hour period covered by this report.

• • • • • • Communities • • • • • •

NH DHHS says that the new cases reside in Rockingham (157), Hillsborough County other than Manchester and Nashua (89), Strafford (69), Merrimack (60), Belknap (44), Carroll (19), Cheshire (15), Grafton (14), Sullivan (10), and Coos (7) counties, and in the cities of Manchester (71) and Nashua (42). The county of residence is being determined for twenty- seven new cases.
Active cases:
- An additional 823 people were reported as “recovered” today; these are reflected in today’s changes.
- One community — Farmington — dropped by enough cases to bring them under 50 active cases.
- There are 28 NH communities with more than 50 active cases. Between them, these communities have 4,308 active cases, accounting for 66% of all active cases.
- Manchester, Nashua, and Concord are the only communities with more active cases than Salem.
Cumulative Cases
- There are now 107 communities that have had 50 or more cases.
- Two more communities — Mont Vernon and Tamworth — now have 50 or more total cases.
- 38 communities have 5 or more new cases than they had yesterday.
- Only Manchester, Nashua, and Concord have had more total cases than Salem.

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

New positive cases by my math (Total of today’s cases minus previous total): 620
New positive cases per DHHS: 624
- 484 PCR tests
- 222 Antigen tests
Children under 18 in new cases: 67
Total positive cases in NH: 38,008
Percentage of today’s tests that are positive per DHHS: 5.9%
Total PCR test results reported today (Positive results plus negative results): 2,238
The daily average of diagnostic (PCR) tests reported from 7 days ago to today: 2,274
New negative results reported today: 1,618
Total negative cases in NH: 451,253

• • • • • • ROCKINGHAM COUNTY • • • • • •

Total cases in Rockingham County: 9,434
New cases in Rockingham County: 157
Rockingham County: New cases per 100K residents: 50.7
Rockingham County 1-week average per 100K residents: 60.0
Rockingham County Positivity Rate: 11.2%
Percent of all cases from Rockingham County: 24.8%
Percent of all cases from either Hillsborough County or Rockingham County: 66%

• • • • • • ACTIVE CASES • • • • • •

Active cases in NH: 6,485
Active cases in Rockingham County: 1,500
Percent of NH’s active cases that are in Rockingham County: 23.1%

• • • • • • OTHER TEST RESULTS • • • • • •

New antibody tests: 32
Total antibody tests (No break downs of positive vs. negative): 34,355
The daily average of antibody tests reported from 7 days ago to today: 49

• • • • • • CHANGES BY AGES • • • • • •
(Shown: Total infections, percentage of all infections, and increase since yesterday.)

0-9: 1563 = 4% (+33).
10-19: 3721 = 10% (+47).
20-29: 7314 = 19% (+97).
30-39: 5658 = 15% (+86).
40-49: 5068 = 13% (+71).
50-59: 6095 = 16% (+112).
60-69: 4166 = 11% (+78).
70-79: 2203 = 6% (+56).
80+: 2182 = 6% (+40).
Unknown: 38 = 0% (+0).

• • • • • • RECOVERED IN NH • • • • • •

Announced today: 823
Total Recovered: 30,867
Percentage of diagnosed cases that have recovered: 81.2 %

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

New people hospitalized from NH: 0
Currently hospitalized: 297
Total hospitalized patients: 889
Percentage of those who have been infected that have been hospitalized: 2.34%
Total admitted to ICU: 297
New hospitalized patients from Rockingham County: 0
Total hospitalized patients from Rockingham County: 208

• • • • • • 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: 656
NH Residents diagnosed with COVID-19 that died: 1.73%
Lives lost in Rockingham County today: 0
Total lives lost in Rockingham County: 125

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.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
~Nelson Mandela

Hello, Salem!

I had a conversation with a friend today, who was just diagnosed with COVID-19. She didn’t understand the difference between Isolation and Quarantine, or what they mean. So, here’s your COVID 101, a short summary of the info provided by NH DHHS.:

Exposure to COVID-19:

If you have been within 6 feet of someone who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 for more than ten minutes from two days before they developed symptoms through their last day of isolation, you must self-quarantine for 10 days following your last exposure to them while they were able to infect you. Get tested 5 – 7 days after your close contact to a person with COVID-19. And monitor for symptoms.

If you must self-quarantine because you have been exposed to someone with COVID=19, you must stay home and avoid other people for 10 days after you were last exposed to a person with COVID-19.

If you are sick:

If you have been diagnosed with COVID-19 you must Isolate: You must stay at your home and avoid other people, including those you live with. If you have symptoms of COVID-19, you must self-isolate as well.

If you have symptoms of COVID-19, you must stay at home until:

At least 10 days have passed since your symptoms first appeared AND
At least 24 hours have passed since your fever went away without the use of fever-reducing medications andimprovement in other symptoms

If you do NOT have symptoms but have a positive COVID-19 diagnostic test, you must stay at home until at least 10 days have passed since the date of your positive COVID-19 diagnostic test, assuming you don’t develop symptoms. If you develop symptoms, see above.

Read more about quarantining here: https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/cdcs/covid19/documents/self-quarantine-covid.pdf

It all boils down to this:
If you have COVID-19, if you have symptoms of COVID-19, or if you have been in close proximity to somebody diagnosed with COVID, you must stay home, and stay away from others.

Please be respectful and responsible in your actions, because it does impact others. Because people aren’t following these guidelines, our cases are going up and up.

Stay positive, stay safe, and always, be kind.

~Bonnie

Compiled by Bonnie Wright, based on data obtained from NH DHHS.

This video was posted almost two months ago. Things have changed in that time. On October 2, US deaths were 1,035,451, according to the video. (My records say 1,033,174 per WorldOmeter.) WorldOMeter now says the global death rate is 1,446,889, an increase of 413,715 in less than two months. Just please remember that there is a lot more between COVID->Death vs. COVID->Recovery. More and more, long-haulers are making the news, as are other consequences of COVID-19.

From the beginning of the pandemic, it took 43 days before NH reached it’s first 1,000 confirmed diagnoses. It took 31 days to go from 10,000 to 18,000. In another 5 days, we added another 2,000.