The daily change in the total number of people either dead or in the hospital because of COVID-19, per 100,000 population, in Colorado (green dots) and New Mexico (yellow dots). Created by Nels Hoffman

By NELS HOFFMAN
Los Alamos

The rate at which people are dying or going into hospitals in Colorado, because of COVID-19, remains below its peak value seen April 3.

The above figure shows the daily change in the total number of people either dead or in the hospital because of COVID-19, per 100,000 population, in Colorado (green dots) and New Mexico (yellow dots).

The average rates over 5-day intervals are shown as dashed lines in the figure. In Colorado, the peak occurred on 3 April, when 127 people in Colorado either died (14 people) or were hospitalized (113 people) because of COVID-19. The peak hasn’t been surpassed in the seven days since then. 127 people amounts to about 2.2 people per 100,000 population in Colorado. 

In New Mexico, the peak hospitalization + death rate occurred more recently, April 9, when 15 people either died (1 person) or were hospitalized (14 people). This amounts to about 0.7 per 100,000 population. On two of the last three days in New Mexico, the rate reached a record level.

The hospitalization rate is the difference between the rate at which people are going into the hospital and the rate at which they are released from the hospital. If more people go out than go in, the rate can be less than zero, as happened in New Mexico April 4.

We add the death rate to the hospitalization rate, because one reason the number of hospitalized people might decrease is that they die. So to guard against that kind of spurious decrease in hospitalization, we add the two rates.

Data come from the health departments of the two states: https://cv.nmhealth.org/newsroom/ , https://cv.nmhealth.org/, and https://covid19.colorado.gov/case-data.