COVID-19 Update December 26

COVID-19 Update December 26

Total: 1,342 confirmed cases in Salem
Salem’s Positivity Rate for the past 2 weeks: 10.8%
1 out of 22 Salem residents has been infected
Salem today: 47 new cases since yesterday; 211 active cases

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

“On Saturday, December 26, 2020, DHHS announced 1,031 new positive test results for COVID-19, for a daily PCR test positivity rate of 6.7%. Today’s results include 392 people who tested positive by PCR test and 639 who tested positive by antigen test. There are now 6,119 current COVID-19 cases diagnosed in New Hampshire. Of the results reported today:

 12/19: 18 new cases today, for an updated total of 763 cases
 12/20: 64 new cases today, for an updated total of 610 cases
 12/21: 80 new cases today, for an updated total of 519 cases
 12/22: 27 new cases today, for an updated total of 455 cases
 12/23: 562 new cases, for an updated total of 820 cases
 12/24: 280 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: 8.0%
- Rockingham County: 8.9%
- Salem: 10.8%
- Manchester: 9.7%
- Nashua: 8.9%
- 37 communities have a positivity rate higher than Salem.
- 47 communities have a positivity rate of more than 10%.
- 106 communities have a positivity rate of more than 5%.
- 113 communities have a positivity rate of more than 2%.

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

Salem had 47 new cases reported today. After Thanksgiving, we didn’t get the town numbers until Sunday, when, after three days, Salem had 40 new cases. 47 is after two days, but not as bad as December 14, when we had 46 new cases in one day.
789 people in NH were reported as “recovered,” including some from Salem. Although we added 47 new cases, our active cases went up by 21. Only two communities, Berlin and Nashua, added more.
NH added 1,031 new cases, one of the highest numbers reported, although this is for two days. 78 are residents of long-term care facilities, and 32 are healthcare workers.
Rockingham County has had over 10,000 cases of COVID-19. We reached 9,000 just one week ago, on Sunday.
Salem makes up 9.6% of the population of Rockingham County, but 13.42% of the cases of COVID-19 in the County.
Manchester makes up 8.28% of NH’s population and 15.5% of the COVID-19 cases. 1 out of 18 Manchester residents has been infected.
Nashua accounts for 6.56% of NH’s population; 9% of the confirmed cases of COVID-19. 1 out of 24 of the residents in Nashua has been infected.
Concord is 3.19% of the population; 3.61% of the population. 1 out of 30 residents of Concord has been diagnosed.
Salem has 2.19% of Salem’s population, and 3.36% of the cases. 1 out of 22 of our residents have had COVID-19
Today is the first time that the number of positive antigen test results were higher than the number of PCR test results. 62% of the test results were from the rapid-response antigen tests.
NH’s PCR positivity rate for the results reported today is 6.7%. NH’s average positivity rate (based on combined PCR and antigen results) for the past week is 8.0%. Rockingham County is 8.9%. Manchester, at 9.7%, has dropped down to less than 10%. Nashua is 10.1%. The only county over 10% is Belknap, at 10.3%. Salem is the highest of all of these, with 10.8%. 37 other communities have a higher positivity rate than Salem.
NH DHHS did not report any new hospitalizations in the 48 hours covered by this update. The number of people who are currently hospitalized went down by 21.
The cumulative total of COVID-19 patients in the ICU has not changed since Saturday.
Today is Day 300 since the virus was first detected in New Hampshire.
11 residents of NH lost their lives because of COVID-19 during the 48-hours covered by this report. 8 were associated with long-term care facilities.
In case you missed it, mainstream media is now reporting that the US has now lost 1 out of every 1,000 people because of COVID.

• • • • • • Communities • • • • • •

NH DHHS says that the new cases reside in Rockingham (326), Hillsborough County other than Manchester and Nashua (157), Merrimack (78), Strafford (67), Coos (59), Belknap (38), Grafton (27), Carroll (22), Cheshire (14), Sullivan (3) counties, and in the cities of Nashua (90) and Manchester (77). The county of residence is being determined for seventy-three new cases.
Active cases:
- An additional 789 people were reported as “recovered” today; these are reflected in today’s changes.
- Two communities — Exeter and Raymond — added enough new cases to bring them to 50 or more active cases.
- One community — Keene — dropped by enough cases to bring them under 50 active cases.
- There are 26 NH communities with more than 50 active cases. Between them, these communities have 3,804 active cases, accounting for 65% of all active cases.
- Of the 26 communities with more than 50 active cases, 15 have more today than they had two days ago. Berlin has the most with 45; Nashua is second with 35, and Salem is third.
- Manchester, Nashua, and Concord are the only communities with more active cases than Salem.
Cumulative Cases
- There are now 109 communities that have had 50 or more cases, and 78 that have had 100 or more.
- There were no changes to the communities on this list today
- 48 communities have 5 or more new cases than they had two days ago. 24, including Salem, have 10 or more new cases than they had on Christmas Eve.
- 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): 1,031
New positive cases per DHHS: 1,031
- 392 PCR tests
- 639 Antigen tests
Children under 18 in new cases: 135
Total positive cases in NH: 39,933
Percentage of today’s tests that are positive per DHHS: 6.7%
Total PCR test results reported today (Positive results plus negative results): 4,747
The daily average of diagnostic (PCR) tests reported from 7 days ago to today: 2,116
New negative results reported today: 3,716
Total negative cases in NH: 459,834

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

Total cases in Rockingham County: 10,003
New cases in Rockingham County: 326
Rockingham County: New cases per 100K residents: 105.2
Rockingham County 1-week average per 100K residents: 62.3
Rockingham County Positivity Rate: 8.9%
Percent of all cases from Rockingham County: 25.0%
Percent of all cases from either Hillsborough County or Rockingham County: 65%

• • • • • • ACTIVE CASES • • • • • •

Active cases in NH: 6,119
Active cases in Rockingham County: 1,504
Percent of NH’s active cases that are in Rockingham County: 24.6%

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

New antibody tests: 79
Total antibody tests (No break downs of positive vs. negative): 34,544
The daily average of antibody tests reported from 7 days ago to today: 50

• • • • • • CHANGES BY AGES • • • • • •
(Shown: Total infections, percentage of all infections, and increase over the last two days.)

0-9: 1664 = 4% (+67).
10-19: 3907 = 10% (+108).
20-29: 7633 = 19% (+164).
30-39: 5974 = 15% (+165).
40-49: 5350 = 13% (+162).
50-59: 6412 = 16% (+174).
60-69: 4357 = 11% (+86).
70-79: 2307 = 6% (+50).
80+: 2287 = 6% (+48).
Unknown: 42 = 0% (+7).

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

Announced today: 789
Total Recovered: 33,113
Percentage of diagnosed cases that have recovered: 82.9%

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

New people hospitalized from NH: 0
Currently hospitalized: 277
Total hospitalized patients: 894
Percentage of those who have been infected that have been hospitalized: 2.24%
Total admitted to ICU: 297
New hospitalized patients from Rockingham County: 0
Total hospitalized patients from Rockingham County: 209

• • • • • • DEATHS IN NH • • • • • •

Lives lost today: 11
Persons over 60 years of age who died today: 11
Persons under 60 years of age who died today: 0
Total fatalities in NH associated with COVID-19: 701
NH Residents diagnosed with COVID-19 that died: 1.76%
Lives lost in Rockingham County today: 5
Total lives lost in Rockingham County: 133

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.

“The virus doesn’t move, people move it. We stop moving, the virus stops moving. The virus dies. It’s that simple.”
– Unknown (Possibly Emily Butler)

Hello, Salem!

Did you have a good holiday? I missed my family, but Zoom was better than nothing, and I was able to see my granddaughter open some of her gifts. I spent way too much time cooking for two, but we have great leftovers now! And I must confess that I enjoyed not having to do an update yesterday.

The labs are backed up, so we don’t have all of the results yet, but I am thankful that NH DHHS was able to get our town numbers much quicker than they did after Thanksgiving. I am guessing that they will shut down for New Year’s. By the time they begin to get caught up, we will likely be seeing an increase in cases.

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.