Improvement seen in key Nevada COVID-19 metrics over past week

Nevada on Friday reported 389 new coronavirus cases and seven additional deaths, ending another week of improvement in the key metrics for the disease.

Updated figures posted to the Department of Health and Human Services’ coronavirus website brought totals in the state to 320,539 cases and 5,530 deaths.

All of the deaths reported Friday occurred in Clark County, according to data posted to the Southern Nevada Health District’s coronavirus website.

New cases remained well above the two-week moving average of daily reported cases, which dropped to 206 on Friday. Fatalities also remained higher than the 14-day moving average of three daily reported deaths during that period.

Both measurements showed improvement over the last week, however, with the moving average of daily cases declining by 56, to 262, and the daily average for deaths ticking down from four, according to state data.

State officials have said that due to delayed reports and redistributed data, it is normal for daily announced increases to be higher than the moving averages. State and county health agencies redistribute the 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.

Data guide: COVID-19’s impact on Nevada

The two-week average of daily reported cases dropped steadily from January through March before starting to rise last month. The metric again started decreasing in mid April, although it has not yet reached the recent low point of 223 reported on March 26, according to state data.

The moving average for fatalities has slowly trended down in recent weeks. The metric dropped from five to four during the second half of April before decreasing again this week.

The state’s two-week positivity rate, which essentially tracks the percentage of people tested for COVID-19 who are found to be infected, decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 5.3 percent in Friday’s report. The rate climbed from a low of 4.2 percent at the end of March to 5.9 percent on April 18, before slowly retreating in recent weeks, the data shows.

The number of people hospitalized in Nevada with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases held steady at 336 on Friday. After decreasing with other metrics from January through March, hospitalizations trended slightly higher in April but have remained relatively steady in recent weeks.

Clark County, meanwhile, registered 330 new cases, according to data from the health department.

Cumulative totals in the county increased to 248,336 cases and 4,358 deaths since the pandemic began.

Clark County’s two-week positivity rate also decreased by 0.1 percentage point on Friday, matching the state’s average.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.