Nevada reports 625 new COVID cases as other metrics rise

Nevada on Tuesday reported 625 new coronavirus cases and eight deaths as the state’s major metrics continued to rise.

Updated data posted by the state Department of Health and Human Services on the state’s coronavirus website pushed the state’s case total to 333,154 and showed the two-week moving average of new COVID-19 cases increasing to 251 per day.

The state’s death total increased to 5,678. The eight deaths reported were above the two-week moving average of two per day.

The state no longer reports numbers over the weekend and public health officials have said that reporting on Monday and sometimes Tuesday can be inflated as a result of the delayed reporting.

But Nevada’s case count continues to rise at a significant rate, and the state now has a higher 7-day case rate per 100,000 people than any other state besides Missouri, according to data from the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention.

The two-week moving average of new cases has been climbing since it reached a low of 132 on June 5.

Data guide: COVID-19’s impact on Nevada

The state’s two-week positivity rate, which essentially tracks the percentage of people tested for COVID-19 who are found to be infected, increased by 0.2 percentage points in Monday’s update to 5.1 percent, according to state data. The rate has been increasing since it hit a recent low of 3.3 percent on June 9 and crossed over 5.0 percent for the first time in over two months.

That’s higher than the 5.0 percent threshold recommended by the World Health Organization to prevent the virus from spreading.

The data also showed 390 people with either confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 were hospitalized in the state, an increase of 35 from the last update on Friday.

State and county health agencies often 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.

Meanwhile, the Southern Nevada Health District reported 534 new cases in Clark County on Tuesday, bringing the local cumulative case total to 259,356. It also reported six of the state’s deaths, bringing the number of deaths in the county to 4,491.

The county’s 14-day positivity rate also climbed from 5.2 percent as of Friday’s report to 5.5 percent.

County numbers are reflected in the statewide totals.

Contact Jonah Dylan at jdylan@reviewjournal.com. Follow @TheJonahDylan on Twitter.