Nevada now has higher COVID-19 case rate than any other state

Nevada on Wednesday reported 558 new coronavirus cases and three deaths on yet another day where the state’s major COVID-19 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 333,712 and showed the two-week moving average of new COVID-19 cases increasing to 268 per day.

The state’s death total increased to 5,681. The three deaths reported were above the two-week moving average of two per day.

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

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 sharply by 0.4 percentage points to 5.5 percent, according to state data. The rate has been increasing since it hit a recent low of 3.3 percent on June 9.

Data guide: COVID-19’s impact on Nevada

It is now higher than the 5 percent threshold recommended by the World Health Organization to prevent the virus from spreading.

The data also showed that 431 people with either confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 were hospitalized in the state, an increase of 41 from the last update on Tuesday.

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 529 new cases in Clark County on Wednesday, bringing the local cumulative case total to 259,885. It also reported all three of the state’s deaths, bringing the number of deaths in the county to 4,494.

The county’s 14-day positivity rate also climbed from 5.5 percent as of Tuesday’s report to 5.8 percent.

County numbers are reflected in the statewide totals.

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