Clark County COVID metrics improve, but hospitalizations still above delta peak

Clark County reported 715 new coronavirus cases and 31 deaths on Wednesday, as cases continued to drop and Gov. Steve Sisolak planned a COVID-19 news conference for Thursday morning.

The updates pushed totals posted by the Southern Nevada Health District to 482,782 cases and 7,145 deaths.

Cases have declined sharply since the county hit the peak of the omicron-driven surge a few weeks ago. Public health officials had sent out a news release each Tuesday since July updating the county-by-county mask guidelines, but that update was missing this week without any explanation.

The health district canceled a media briefing scheduled for Wednesday, citing “scheduling conflicts.” A spokesperson for Sisolak did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“What we’ve seen historically is as we’ve removed mitigation measures, there has been an increase in cases that are occurring because that layer of protection isn’t in place anymore,” said Kevin Dick, district health officer for the Washoe County Health District. “So I think people need to be prepared, that if we are eliminating those mandates, we should expect to be seeing some effects of those and some increased transmission.”

The mask mandate is tied to metrics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and CDC data on Wednesday showed that nearly all of the Silver State is still in the “high” transmission tier.

For a county to exit the state mask mandate for crowded indoor public spaces, it must record back-to-back weeks with a seven-day average case rate under 50 per 100,000 residents and a seven-day test positivity rate below 8 percent — metrics considered as posing a “moderate” or “low” risk of transmission by the CDC.

Eureka County was in the “substantial” tier, the only county not in “high.” Clark County showed a case rate of 258.35 per 100,000 people and a 7-day test positivity rate of 18.81 percent. Both those numbers are much lower than a few weeks ago but are still a ways away from meeting the criteria to exit the current mask mandate.

New cases on Wednesday were again well below the two-week moving average, which saw another significant drop from 913 on Tuesday to 798. The two-week moving average of daily deaths held steady at 10.

The number of people hospitalized with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 saw a major decrease, dropping from 1,019 on Tuesday to 965. The Nevada Hospital Association said in its weekly release on Wednesday that staffing is still an issue across the state, even as long-term data shows that hospitalization numbers have dropped sharply over the last few weeks.

“Hospitalized COVID-19 cases continue to recover but have not returned to baseline,” the trade group said. “In Nevada, the seven-day rolling average of hospitalization is now 1,224, higher than the peak (1,175) during the Delta wave. The hospital sector continues to experience barriers to functioning at its full capability, including staffing challenges and the ability to transfer patients to lower-level, more appropriate levels of care.”

Data guide: COVID-19’s impact on Nevada

The county’s 14-day test positivity rate, which tracks the percentage of people tested who are found to be infected, decreased by 1.4 percentage points to 23.9 percent in Wednesday’s update.

Meanwhile, the state reported 1,280 new cases and 34 deaths over the preceding day. That brought totals posted by the state Department of Health and Human Services to 636,718 cases and 9,270 deaths.

New cases were almost right at the two-week moving average, which decreased again to 1,278. The two-week moving average of daily deaths held steady at 14.

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.

In the state’s other closely watched metrics, the 14-day test positivity rate decreased 1.2 percentage points to 25.9 percent, while the number of people hospitalized with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 decreased to 1,182. That number has shifted significantly from day to day but has dropped over the last week.

As of Wednesday, state data showed that 56.12 percent of Nevadans 5 and older were fully vaccinated, compared with 55.51 percent in Clark County.

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