Nevada reports 806 new coronavirus cases, 2 deaths

A day after state officials announced that delayed laboratory testing caused an “unusually large” increase in reported coronavirus cases, Nevada again reported a high number of new cases on Saturday.

There were 806 additional cases reported Saturday, along with two more deaths, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ coronavirus website. The state on Friday announced that 17,916 tests were recently reported to the state, resulting in 766 new cases.

It was not immediately clear if Saturday’s cases were also related to the delayed lab reports.

The updated figures brought totals for the state to 85,399 cases, and 1,659 deaths, state data shows.

It was unclear what caused Friday’s delayed reporting, although a statement from Nevada Health Response said state officials are working with reporting labs “in order to determine what corrective actions should be taken.”

The additional cases on Friday also came from testing related to the NFL and within Department of Corrections facilities.

“A (Department of Health and Human Services’) examination of the labs reported today shows that many of the specimens were collected within the last week, although a number of the specimen collection dates go back into mid-September,” the release said.

Saturday’s updated figures brought the state infection rate — calculated by the Review-Journal as the number of cases divided by total people tested — to 11.64 percent. The rate has been slowly increasing since mid-September.

The state health department, which calculates the positivity rate based on the number of total tests administered, reported a cumulative rate of 9.7 percent on Saturday, where the percentage has been since Wednesday. The state’s methodology yields lower figures because many people get tested multiple times, increasing the numbers upon which the percentages are based, which in turn lowers the percentages.

In Clark County, the Southern Nevada Health District on Saturday reported 595 additional cases, but no additional deaths, according to the county’s coronavirus website.

The updated figures brought the number of cases in the county to 71,325, while the number of fatalities remained at 1,438.

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