Clark County reports 13 new COVID-19 deaths, bringing state toll to 71

A new report by the Southern Nevada Health District reported the spike in deaths after the state reported 58 total deaths late Monday. The state numbers did not specify where the deaths occurred, and that figure probably included most of the deaths reported by the health district.

The health district also reported a total of 1,734 COVID-19 cases in Clark County as of early Tuesday, up from 1,608 on Monday.

The number of cases has been increasing at Las Vegas Valley hospitals, rising from 100 patients on March 29 to 417 as of Tuesday. That figure indicates that 27 percent of those diagnosed with COVID-19 have required hospitalization, a figure that is likely inflated because most tests are conducted on the seriously ill, including many who have been admitted.

A death of a woman in her 50s reported Tuesday by the Washoe County Health District — bringing the county total to five — and one death previously reported in Elko County added to the new figure for Clark County, according to individual reports by health districts and county officials.

Earlier in the day, the Washoe health district had reported 28 new cases of COVID-19 and one new recovery. The district provided no details about the new cases but said in a news release that the county had reported 309 cases, of which 274 are considered active, including 28 patients who are hospitalized. It said 31 other patients are considered recovered from the virus.

The number of cases reported by the local authorities in Nevada — 2,102 as of Tuesday night — exceeded the figure of 2,087 reported earlier in the day by the state Health and Human Services Department on its nvhealthresponse.nv.gov website. The latter figure was up by 134 cases overnight, according to the state’s tally.

With 18,639 others testing negative for the virus, according to the state data, that translates to an infection rate of just over 11 percent. That figure also is likely inflated because the seriously ill and people who have had close contact with other diagnosed cases are more likely to be tested.

Late on Monday, the state reported that the number of COVID-19 deaths has jumped by 12 to 58 — the biggest one-day increase since Nevada reported its first death on March 16.

Gov. Steve Sisolak suggested in a post on Twitter on Monday night that a reporting bottleneck could have delayed reporting some of the deaths.

“We are currently investigating whether all 12 of these deaths occurred today, or if there was a lag in timely reporting over the weekend. If so, I will work to make sure this is fixed,” he said.

In other developments Tuesday:

■ Nye County officials reported a new case of COVID-19 in a Tonopah resident, raising the number of cases reported in the county to 10. The case was the first reported in the town. County officials say two of those diagnosed with the disease have recovered.

■ The College of Southern Nevada has reported two more cases of COVID-19 among its students, bringing the total to four in the three-campus system. The new cases involved a student who was last on the North Las Vegas campus on March 17 and a student last on the Charleston campus the same day. The Southern Nevada Health District was attempting to track down and notify anyone who may have had close contact.

■ Carson City Health and Human Services reported three new cases: a Carson city man in his 20s; a Carson City woman in her 40s; and a Douglas County woman in her 30s. The Quad-County region, which also includes Douglas, Lyon and Storey counties, has 18 active cases.

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