Clark County’s sweeping pandemic plan is due by mid-April

Clark County must present to the state by mid-April its sweeping plan to combat the pandemic as it prepares to take over regulating activities including public gatherings and youth sports May 1.

Nevada’s handover of local control to counties comes amid declining coronavirus figures and at the direction of Gov. Steve Sisolak, who announced his intention in February to let counties prove they can “go back to the local level and manage this the way you think works best for your community.”

The county will propose measures on crowd size for wide-reaching business types and activities, including churches, restaurants and private gatherings, according to a state planning template updated Monday.

It could also decide to act on current prohibitions regarding youth sports, karaoke, nightclubs and brothels, the document shows. It will not have authority over school reopenings, nor will it be able to implement rules for casinos, which remain under the supervision of the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

A county representative appeared before the statewide COVID-19 task force on Thursday to discuss the plan, saying it would involve the Southern Nevada Health District, the Nevada Hospital Association, and school and city officials.

But the specifics of what it might look like remained unclear, and commission Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick could not be reached Thursday to discuss expectations for what the county could propose.

The county commission must pass a plan before it is presented to the task force for review by April 15, and certain statewide measures such as the mask-wearing mandate and social distancing protocols cannot be undone.

In addition to pandemic mitigation measures, the plan must outline efforts on monitoring, enforcement, resources and messaging, according to the state template.

Billy Samuels, a deputy fire chief for the Clark County Fire Department, told the task force that he did not foresee any issues with the county meeting its deadline. But Samuels did request that the state provide more vaccine.

“If you guys can get us vaccines to get us to our 1.2 million (people), to that 60 percent of our total population, we can get out of this hole a lot quicker,” he said.

State COVID-19 response director Caleb Cage said that Nevada was receiving promising information from the federal government about increases in vaccine supply. There have been 719,000 doses administered in the county as of Wednesday, according to figures provided by the health district, and the state surpassed 1 million doses on Thursday.

Contact Shea Johnson at sjohnson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @Shea_LVRJ on Twitter.