Clark County sees 242 more coronavirus cases, no new deaths

There were 242 more cases reported in the county, but the death toll remained at 377 as of Saturday morning. The new cases on Saturday eclipsed the 207 cases reported on Monday and 214 cases reported Friday.

Statewide, the Department of Health and Human Services reported an additional 268 cases and one more death on Saturday morning. That brings totals across the state to 10,946 cases and 463 deaths.

An additional 17 people were hospitalized from Friday to Saturday in Clark County, according to the health district. The daily average of hospitalizations has continued to climb for about two weeks, although the hospitalization rate — the number of people hospitalized divided by those with confirmed cases — has decreased.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal has long used the hospitalization rate as a good indicator of the trend of the outbreak in the county, but Brian Labus, an assistant professor in epidemiology and biostatistics at UNLV and a member of the medical team advising Gov. Steve Sisolak, recommends following the actual daily reported number of hospitalizations rather than the rate. The reason, he says, is that the latter can be influenced by increased testing for COVID-19, which could result in a decreasing hospitalization rate even as the number of people being admitted was on the rise.

As of Saturday morning, 199,356 people had been tested for the virus throughout Nevada, representing an infection rate of about 5.5 percent — slightly higher than the 5.5 percent infection rate reported Thursday and Friday.

The infection rate had been steadily declining since it peaked at 12.66 percent on April 23, but over the last week the rate has leveled off, and at times slightly increased.

An advisory from the Nevada Hospital Association issued Thursday said that the state had seen recent upticks in the number of new hospitalizations.

“Confirmed hospitalized cases continue to rise in small increments for the past six days,” it said, referencing data through Wednesday.

In a news briefing Thursday, Caleb Cage, Nevada’s COVID-19 response director, acknowledged the recent upticks in new cases and hospitalizations. He said expanded testing accounts for some increases in the new cases, and that new hospitalizations remain within the expected range.

“Our assessment based on this data is that we are not seeing evidence of a second wave of COVID-19 here in Nevada yet,” Cage said Thursday at the online briefing.

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