COVID-19 active cases in Pecos County reached an all-time high in Pecos County on Dec. 28 with 91 active cases being reported.

The previous high was 88 people, a number reported almost exactly a year ago.

Since Christmas Eve, there have been 84 new active cases reported – 54 vaccinated people (64%) and 30 non-vaccinated individuals.

The discrepancy between non-vaccinated and vaccinated with recent tests are far less than previous spikes. Since July 28, the average was consistently near 80% for non-vaccinated individuals testing positive, which is now down 16% percent the last week.

Despite the high number of active cases, there were only two reported hospitalizations at Pecos County Memorial Hospital on Monday and that number has stayed low with the recent resurgence of the virus.

Both local trends fall in line with the ongoing nationwide trend with the Omicron variant.

Pecos County was at

15 active cases on Dec. 21 and had not been at or over 50 active cases since Oct. 6.

The Delta variant time period, which began to be tracked on July 28 in the county, spiked at 74 people on Aug. 31.

The last reported COVID-19 related death occurred on Dec. 15 and the fatality was the only COVID related death in the county this month.

Monoclonal antibody treatments discontinued

PCMH CEO Betsy Briscoe reported on Dec. 28 that the hospital will not be able to request monoclonal antibody treatments moving forward from the state due to the federal government’s determination that the treatment is ineffective for the Omicron variant.

Briscoe added that PCMH still has a limited number of monoclonal antibody treatments left and they will be used at the discretion of hospital’s doctors prescribing them for patients with appropriate symptoms.