All key Clark County COVID-19 metrics show week-over-week declines

All four of Clark County’s key COVID-19 metrics declined over the past week, though new cases fell at a slower pace than in preceding week, according to state and local data posted Friday.

The Southern Nevada Health District reported 458 new COVID-19 cases and four deaths in the county during the preceding day.

That pushed totals for the county to 323,940 cases of the disease and 5,743 deaths.

New cases were well above the county’s 14-day moving average of 351 per day, but the average itself was 22 lower than the 373 reported on Wednesday, the most recent data available due to an outage of the state reporting system on Thursday.

Over the past week, the measure added to recent declines, dropping by a little over 4 percent from 367 a week ago. But that represented a considerable slowdown from the more than 10 percent drop registered the week prior.

The average has been declining since it reached a recent high of 1,193 on Aug. 19, with the fall accelerating starting in mid-September. As of Friday’s report, the metric had declined more than 70 percent from the recent peak.

Fatalities in the county, meanwhile, were below the 14-day average of seven per day, which ticked up by one from Wednesday’s report. Week over week, deaths declined by one per day, representing a 12.5 percent decrease.

Deaths also have been declining since reaching a recent high of 22 per day on Aug. 29. Even with the one-per-day jump in the two-week average reported Friday, the metric has fallen more than 68 percent from the high.

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The test positivity rate, meanwhile, increased by 0.2 percentage points for the day to 6.9 percent, the first time the index has moved higher since it ticked upward by 0.1 percentage point on Sept. 13. Even with the jump, the rate ended the week a full percentage point below the 7.9 percent reported a week earlier.

The metric also has been declining over the longer term after reaching a recent high of 15.7 percent on Aug. 8.

Hospitalizations of confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients in the county declined to 601 as of Friday’s report, down from 644 on Wednesday. The number of hospitalized was down from 642 a week ago and has now declined nearly 49 percent from its recent high of 1,168 on Aug. 10, state data show.

The health district said it did not generate a report this week on so-called breakthrough cases in which vaccinated individuals are infected because of “recent revisions in methodology.”

State and county health agencies often redistribute daily data after it is reported to better reflect the date of death or onset of symptoms, which is why the moving-average trend lines frequently differ from daily reports and are considered better indicators of the direction of the outbreak.

The state, meanwhile, reported 1,412 new COVID-19 cases and 39 deaths after not reporting updated data on Thursday due to technology issues.

The new figures posted by the Department of Health and Human Services brought totals for the state to 426,407 cases of the disease and 7,285 deaths.

The state test positivity rate was 8.4 percent, down 0.1 percentage points from the last update on Wednesday.

Hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients stood at 863, down 20 from Wednesday’s report.

As of Friday’s report, state data show that 54.62 percent of Nevadans 12 and older had been fully vaccinated, compared to 53.84 percent in Clark County.

Contact Mike Brunker at mbrunker@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4656. Follow @mike_brunker on Twitter.