Nellis Air Force Base reverting to its Phase Two reopening plan

Nellis Air Force Base is reverting to Phase Two of its five-phase reopening plan.

Officials at the base, which remains under a public health emergency, announced Thursday that Nellis is tightening restrictions because of Southern Nevada’s “sustained increase in the number of positive COVID-19 cases.”

The base was previously in Phase Three, which it entered on June 1.

Phase Two permits mission-essential employees to work on base while allowing telework to the maximum extent possible. Large groups are limited and social distancing is required. Face coverings also are required on base.

Nellis’ hospital remains open to all eligible beneficiaries. Access to the main base, where the satellite pharmacy is housed, is still restricted to base personnel and dependents of uniformed members.

Retirees continue to have access to their prescriptions by mail or retail pharmacy options.

Nellis Air Force Base leadership, including its medical professionals, continue to monitor and work closely with federal, state and local health officials to ensure response efforts are coordinated, the base said Thursday.

For the base to move back into Phase Three and beyond, there must be no significant change in positive COVID-19 cases, robust testing capability, hospital surge capacity and extensive tracing measures for at least two weeks, base officials say.

Although the base has declined to give the number of COVID-19 cases on base, an email obtained by the Review-Journal and dated April 23 showed that Col. Cavan Craddock, former commander of the 99th Air Base Wing, told base personnel that 1,083 tests had been administered at Nellis hospital. Fifty-one came back positive, he said.

The first case connected to the base was announced on March 19 and involved a service member from the NATO military alliance who was at the base earlier in the month for Red Flag 20-2, an air-to-air combat training exercise.

During Red Flag, more than 80 aircraft depart Nellis twice a day and remain in the air for up to five hours. Since 1975, 29 other countries have joined the U.S. in the exercises, and several other countries have participated as observers.

For Nellis-specific COVID-19 information, visit https://www.nellis.af.mil/COVID-19/.

Contact Briana Erickson at berickson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5244. Follow @ByBrianaE on Twitter.