Nevada’s new COVID-19 cases climb, but deaths, positivity rate down

Nevada public health officials on Monday reported 212 new coronavirus cases and one additional death in the state over the preceding day.

Updated numbers from the state Department of Health and Human Services pushed Nevada’s cumulative totals to 303,273 cases and 5,237 deaths.

New cases increased from 143 reported Sunday and were above the two-week moving average of 201 per day. Over the same period, Nevada averaged four deaths per day.

Health officials in many rural counties do not work on weekends, which can cause lower numbers on Mondays, Caleb Cage, the state’s COVID-19 response director, has said.

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Numbers posted to the state’s coronavirus data page also showed 265 people with either confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 were hospitalized in the state. That’s a decrease of 14 patients from the previous day, according to the web page.

The state’s two-week positivity rate, which essentially tracks the percentage of people tested for COVID-19 who are found to be infected, dropped 0.1 percentage points from the previous day to 4.2 percent, according to state data.

The state is expected to turn over control of mitigation procedures to local jurisdictions on May 1.

Cage said on a conference call with reporters Monday that officials hope to make that transition while the number of new cases remains low.

But a surge in cases, including those possibly driven by coronavirus variants, could trigger more statewide mitigation efforts, he said.

“But that is absolutely not the goal,” he said. “The goal is to turn it over to county governments on May 1 and continue forward from that point as planned with the state remaining open and mitigation measures driven at the county level.”

State biostatistician Kyra Morgan added that Nevada did not see any significant increases in cases after allowing businesses to raise capacity from 25 percent to 35 percent mid-February and again to 50 on March 15.

Meanwhile, Clark County’s 14-day positivity rate reached 4.1 percent Monday, a decrease of 0.1 percentage points from the previous day.

The county also reported 100 new cases, bringing the local cumulative case total to 234,131. The only death reported in the state on Monday was from Clark County, pushing the local death toll to 4,097.

County numbers are reflected in statewide totals.

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