Clark County has 145 new coronavirus cases, one more death

Clark County recorded 145 new cases of the coronavirus and one additional death as of Saturday morning, according to the Southern Nevada Health District.

The new data brings the total number of cases in the county to 7,331, with 358 deaths.

Health district staff redistribute the cases and deaths after they are reported in an effort to better reflect when they occurred. As a result, the totals announced daily generally don’t match the detailed breakdown by date that the district provides.

Data from the health district shows that 5,727 people in Clark County have recovered from the virus.

The hospitalization rate in the county, considered by public health experts to be a better indicator of the overall trend of the outbreak than new cases and deaths, continued to decline, hitting 17.87 percent. The rate has seen a steady decline since it peaked at 27.50 percent on April 10.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services reported an additional 194 cases in Nevada, with four new deaths.

The update brings the total number of cases in the state to 9,460, with 437 deaths, according to the nvhealthresponse.nv.gov website.

A separate count based on data from individual counties and health officials show 9,497 cases in the state, and an estimated 7,080 people who have recovered. Data from the state often varies from individual counties due to different reporting cycles.

As of Saturday, 171,754 people have been tested in Nevada, representing an infection rate of about 5.5 percent, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

That rate is slightly lower than Friday’s infection rate of 5.7 percent. Overall, the rate is well below the high of 12.66 percent reported on April 23.

Like the hospitalization rate at the county level, the infection rate is considered a better indicator of the trend of the outbreak in the state. The infection rate has been driven lower by increased COVID-19 testing over recent weeks following a severe shortage of supplies in the early months of the outbreak in the state in early March. The surge has resulted in an average of more than 5,100 tests a day over the past week. That, in turn, has led to more people with mild or moderate symptoms — or even no symptoms — of the disease being checked and found not to be infected by the virus, resulting in the declining infection rate.

In other developments:

■ According to data from the Metropolitan Police Department last updated Friday, 30 Metro employees have tested positive for the virus. There are 260 total employees who have been tested, 224 of whom received negative results and four awaiting results.

■ Washoe County reported an additional 34 cases on Saturday, bringing the county’s total cases to 1,719. The number of people who have died remained the same at 65.

■ Carson City Health and Human Services reported three additional cases — a Lyon County man in his 60s, a Carson City man in his 50s and another Carson City man in his 30s — and four additional recoveries of COVID-19 in the Quad-County region. The new figures bring the total number of cases to 230 with 159 recoveries and six deaths. Sixty-five cases remain active.

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