Clark County COVID metrics dip, but mask mandate expands to all Nevada

Nevada’s key COVID-19 metrics on Wednesday added to mounting evidence that Clark County’s surge is waning at the same time the spread of the disease is accelerating in other parts of the state.

As a result, people in all 17 Nevada counties will be covered by Gov. Steve Sisolak’s face-mask mandate as of Friday.

Data posted by the state Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday added 1,446 new coronavirus cases — nearly two-thirds of them outside of Clark County — and 33 deaths over the preceding day. The county reported 513 new cases over the preceding day, or about 35 percent of the state total.

The updates pushed state totals to 399,234 cases of the disease caused by the new coronavirus and 6,637 deaths.

New cases were much higher than the two-week moving average, which nonetheless dropped to 868. Deaths were more than triple the moving two-week average, which remained at 10 fatalities per day.

The state’s two-week positivity rate, which essentially tracks the percentage of people tested for COVID-19 who are found to be infected, increased 0.1 percentage point to 12.3 percent, according to state data. The rate declined steeply from its recent high of 16.4 percent on Aug. 13 before flattening over the past 10 days, state data show.

Nevada also reported that 1,137 people in the state were hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases, 44 fewer than the previous day. The number of hospitalizations in the state has been slowly decreasing over the past few weeks.

“Significant” staffing shortages remain the biggest problem facing hospitals across the state, the Nevada Hospital Association said in its weekly update on Wednesday, particularly in the northern part of the state.

“These shortages are resulting in downstream patient care effects including ambulances delayed at hospitals, difficulties discharging or placing patients in a skilled nursing facility, and delayed or canceled procedures,” the trade group said. “Hospitals can limit some services, contract in size (limit the number of available beds), or augment staffing with employee incentives, overtime, or other enticements. All of these are viewed as short-term solutions to long-term problems.”

Delta defies high vaccination rate

Positivity rates show how the pandemic has shifted over the past month. While Clark County was ground zero of the state outbreak at that point, the surge is now hitting other parts of the state harder.

Washoe County, for example, reported a test positivity rate of 19.2 percent on Wednesday, well above the state’s recent peak. That number has remained relatively flat for several weeks, even as the county has continued to add to its above-average vaccination rate. As of Wednesday, 61.62 percent of county residents 12 and older had been fully vaccinated.

Nancy Diao, division director of epidemiology and public health preparedness for the Washoe County Health District, said at a news briefing Wednesday that though the county’s vaccination rate is higher than the state’s as a whole, it isn’t yet high enough to stop the spread of the virus.

“In terms of herd immunity, that threshold has probably moved up because of delta (a new coronavirus variant) and high transmissibility of other variants that could come, but if we can move closer to that, then we can see our test positivity drop,” she said.

It’s unclear, she said, what the that threshold is, but it’s likely above 90 percent.

Data guide: COVID-19’s impact on Nevada

Nye County, which saw its positivity rate skyrocket to over 32 percent just a few weeks ago, is now seeing some easing in the rate, though it remains at 24.5 percent, still well above statewide average.

Despite the recent improvements in the key COVID metrics, they have not yet seriously eroded the increases seen during the summer surge of the virus.

As a result, all but one of Nevada’s 17 counties are now listed as having “high” risk of transmission of the disease, and the lone exception — Lincoln County — has “substantial” transmission risk. Those are the two highest categories in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and means counties so rated are required to comply with the state’s face mask directive.

Lincoln County will be the last to fall under the mandate on Friday, after two weeks of high-risk classification.

Clark County indicator drops sharply

The state reinstituted a mask mandate in crowded indoor public spaces for counties that have “high or substantial” rates of transmission on July 30, about two weeks before the state’s numbers started to flatten and drop.

The new CDC data did show that Clark County had made a dramatic drop in its case rate, which fell from 202 cases per 100,000 people on Aug. 31 to 182 cases per 100,000 people as of Wednesday. That number, coupled with a seven-day test positivity rate of 10.7 percent, means the county could potentially be close to slipping out of the high transmission tier.

Remembering those we’ve lost to COVID-19

But it would still need to decline further to reach the moderate transmission category, which requires that a county must have a rate of under 50 cases per 100,000 population and a COVID-19 test positivity rate of 10 percent or less. After two weeks of moderate transmission, the county would no longer be subject to the state mask mandate.

The state uses a two-week moving average to calculate the test positivity rate it reports daily, which is why its numbers don’t match the federal data.

In addition to the 513 new COVID-19 cases reported in Clark County by the Southern Nevada Health District on Wednesday, the district recorded 25 deaths over the preceding day.

Clark County’s two-week test positivity rate, which has dropped rapidly in recent weeks, declined 0.1 percentage point to 10.4 percent.

As of Wednesday’s report, 52.75 percent of Nevadans age 12 and older had been fully vaccinated.

Contact Jonah Dylan at jdylan@reviewjournal.com. Follow @TheJonahDylan on Twitter.