Counties report outbreak details; Elko bars stay closed

CARSON CITY – Citing still-high infection data in Elko County, the state COVID task force on Thursday voted to keep the county’s bars and other alcohol-serving establishments closed for at least another two weeks.

“My major concern is the level of the enforcement plan as it stands right now,” said Caleb Cage, the state’s COVID-19 response director. Elko’s overall COVID mitigation plan, he said, is not “as developed as it should be” given the population of cities like Carlin Elko, Wells and Wendover.

At its weekly status meeting, the task force also dropped one county, Humboldt, from the state’s high-risk list, and added another, Lyon, keeping the number of high-risk counties in the state at seven. Besides Elko and Lyon, the other five are Churchill, Clark, Lander, Nye and Washoe.

The task force took no action on bar closures that were retained last week in Clark and Washoe pending next week’s status review of those counties. Elko’s status will be reviewed on Sept. 10. Bars also remain closed in the city of Pahrump in Nye County, but were opened last week in rural parts of the county.

Among other counties, both Washoe and Nye reported more detailed information on localized outbreaks: Washoe said most of its cases arose in workplaces, retail, recreation and dining establishments, and private social gatherings. Nye, through contact tracing, found infection spread among large, multi-generational families living under one roof and law enforcement personnel passing the disease to their families.

The task force, comprising state and local officials from various agencies, assesses three criteria on a moving basis to determine county-by-county risk factors for the spread of COVID-19: per capita average daily tests conducted, per capita positive cases and the overall positivity rate. High numbers in two of the three criteria put a county at high risk. Elko, along with Nye, exceeds limits in all three categories.

Counties tagged at high risk most prepare and present mitigation and management plans for the task force’s review. The plan Elko presented Thursday cited stabilizing infection data, including good hospital and medical equipment capacity, and noted that elevated case numbers were the result of local, isolated outbreaks, including large single-family households.

The county also had a large outbreak of 16 cases at one skilled nursing facility.

In its mitigation plan, the county contended that opening its bars would discourage residents from traveling outside the county to drink and that its audits of businesses showed compliance with social distancing requirement.

Compared to last week’s figures, Elko saw a slight decline in new positive cases reported. But it also tested fewer people on a per capita basis and saw its positive test rate jump two points to nearly 17 percent, two negative trends. The task force cited those developments in voting unanimously to keep Elko’s current restrictions in place pending a review in two weeks.

Elko has increased positivity rates rather and had proposed opening up bars “in heavily populated areas as well, so those are issues of concern for me,” Cage said.

Contact Capital Bureau reporter Bill Dentzer at bdentzer@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DentzerNews on Twitter.