Clark County adds more than 1K COVID-19 cases for first time

Clark County recorded more than 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 — its largest announced one-day jump of the outbreak — and Nevada reported more than 1,100 cases and 19 additional deaths over the preceding day, according to data posted Tuesday.

The Southern Nevada Health District reported 1,021 new cases on its coronavirus website, pushing the case total for the county to 24,824. The district estimates that 16,662 of those patients have recovered.

That was the highest single day increase announced by the district, surpassing the 971 new cases reported on June 27.

The district also reported 15 additional fatalities, increasing the death toll in the county to 498.

New cases were well above the daily average of just over 712 over the preceding week, while deaths were also well above the daily average of just over six during the period.

The health district also announced 39 additional hospitalizations over the preceding day, well above the daily average of nearly 28 for the preceding week.

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Meanwhile, the state Department of Health and Human Services reported 1,104 new cases and 19 additional deaths.

The data published on the agency’s nvhealthresponse.nv.gov website increased the case total for the state to 29,619 and the death toll to 612. Reports from local health districts and counties place the case total somewhat higher, at 29,665 as of late Tuesday.

Caleb Cage, the state’s pandemic response chief, said at a news briefing that the 4th of July holiday likely played a role in the current surge of cases in Nevada and Clark County.

“We believe that many of the new cases in this recent surge are coming from the Fourth of July weekend,” Cage said, calling the finding concerning.

It was the third time the state has reported more than 1,000 cases in a day and was the second-highest total after the 1,159 cases reported on June 26.

New cases were well above the daily average of nearly 801 over the preceding week, while the deaths were well above the daily average of eight during the period.

Cage and Julia Peek, a top Nevada community health administrator, noted the daily total included about 400 cases delayed in reports by two Las Vegas-area laboratories.

The state and the Nevada Hospital Association also have reported a surge in hospitalizations over the past several weeks, capped by a record 983 suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients hospitalized as of Monday.

The hospital association says COVID-19 patients account for 16 percent of occupied hospital beds in the state.

Hospitals in Southern Nevada are not at capacity, the association said, with 80 percent of hospital beds 88 percent of intensive care unit beds occupied and 44 percent of ventilators in use.

The state infection or positivity rate, considered a better barometer of the trend of the outbreak than daily case and death reports, rose for the sixth straight day and for the 26th out of the last 27 days to 8.24 percent.

The rate, the number of confirmed cases divided by the number of people tested, declined steadily over a period of more than two months before bottoming out at 5.20 percent on June 17. Since then it has been climbing steadily.

Both the health district and the state redistribute cases after they are announced in an attempt to better reflect the outbreak, so detailed breakdowns provided by the district often don’t match the daily totals.

Contact Mike Brunker at mbrunker@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4656. Follow @mike_brunker on Twitter. The Associated Press contributed to this report.