New Clark County COVID-19 cases up nearly 25% for week

Clark County on Friday reported 434 new cases of COVID-19 and 26 deaths during the previous day as key metrics for the disease ended the week higher than the last.

Updated figures posted online by the Southern Nevada Health District pushed totals for the county to 349,093 cases and 6,308 deaths since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.

New cases were above the moving 14-day average of 370 per day, while the average jumped by 21 cases a day from Thursday’s report, according to state data.

Fatalities were more than four times the two-week moving average of six per day, one more than on Thursday, state data shows.

The county’s test positivity rate — the percentage of people tested for COVID-19 who are found to be infected — was unchanged from the previous day at 7.4 percent.

Patients with confirmed and suspected cases of COVID-19 were occupying 568 beds in county hospitals, 14 fewer than on Wednesday. Of those, 135 people were being treated in intensive care units and 78 required ventilators.

Data guide: COVID-19’s impact on Nevada

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 longer-term indicators all indicate the disease caused by the new coronavirus is again spreading in the county.

New cases jumped sharply week over week, climbing nearly 25 percent from the two-week average of 297 reported on the previous Friday.

The average of deaths per day rose 50 percent over the period, from four per day to six.

The county’s positivity rate was up 0.6 percentage points — a gain of almost 9 percent — for the week, moving the county farther from exiting the state’s face mask mandate for crowded indoor public spaces.

COVID-19-related hospitalizations ended the week 38 higher than a week earlier, an increase of more than 7 percent.

The health district did not publish its weekly update on so-called breakthrough cases in which individuals are infected by the virus despite being fully vaccinated. It was not clear why.

The state Department of Health and Human Services, meanwhile, reported 582 new COVID-19 cases and 36 deaths during the previous day.

Both metrics were well above the two-week moving averages of 494 cases per day and nine deaths per day, respectively. Both averages also increased from Thursday.

The state’s test positivity rate remained unchanged at 7.4 percent, while the number of confirmed and suspected COVID-19 hospitalizations declined slightly to 686, seven fewer than in Thursday’s report.

As of Friday, 53.26 percent of eligible Nevadans 5 and up had been vaccinated compared to 52.53 percent in Clark County.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @rickytwrites.