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State reports 1,146 new COVID-19 cases, 5 deaths

Updated October 24, 2020 - 5:19 pm

For the first time in more than two months, more than 1,000 new cases of the coronavirus were reported throughout Nevada on Saturday, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

There were 1,146 new cases reported, along with five additional deaths, according to the state health department’s coronavirus website. The last time the state recorded more than 1,000 cases in one day was on Aug. 14, when there were 1,099 reported cases.

The updated data brought totals in Nevada to 94,812 cases and 1,743 deaths.

Gov. Steve Sisolak reacted to the single-day spike in a tweet.

“Nevada —It doesn’t have to be this way. Now is the time to double down on #COVID19 mitigation measures … As I said this week, we can’t get tired when the virus isn’t tired,” Sisolak said in the tweet.

The new cases include numbers from Washoe County, which reported its highest-ever, one-day increase in cases on Friday evening. Because that county reports numbers in the evening, they are factored into the following day’s state total.

Cases across the country have been increasing as well, with a record daily increase of new cases in the U.S. reported on Saturday by Johns Hopkins University. There were 83,757 new cases reported in the country, topping 77,362 cases reported on July 16.

The death toll in the U.S. has reached 223,995, according to data from Johns Hopkins.

The state’s infection rate, which is calculated by the Review-Journal as total cases divided by total people tested, rose by 0.1 percentage points to reach 12.10 percent on Saturday, according to state data.

The rate has been slowly increasing since mid-September, when daily case reports also started rising. The daily reports of fatalities has not seen the same increase, although rises in deaths typically lag several weeks behind increases in new cases.

The health department calculates a positivity rate over a two-week period, and it increased by 0.2 percentage points to reach 9.8 percent on Saturday. The rate is calculated using total “testing encounters,” which produces lower percentages because the figure includes people who received multiple tests at different points during the pandemic.

As of Friday, 493 people were hospitalized throughout Nevada with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases, state data shows.

The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations was reported at 500 on Friday, the highest average since Oct. 16. The moving average has been slowing increasing throughout this month, after decreasing in September.

During a meeting of the state’s COVID-19 mitigation task force on Thursday, Caleb Cage, the director of Nevada’s COVID-19 response, said hospitalizations have remained relatively steady and have not stressed health care systems.

Data from the Nevada Hospital Association last updated Friday shows that across the state, about 75 percent of hospital beds are in use, along with 25 percent of ventilators.

The age group in Nevada with the most coronavirus cases is 20- to 29-year-olds, who make up 20.6 percent of all cases, state data shows. But the majority of deaths — 60.82 percent as of Saturday — are among people 70 or older.

Clark County saw 736 additional cases reported on Saturday, along with three more deaths, according to the Southern Nevada Health District’s coronavirus website.

The updated figures brought totals in the county to 78,162 cases and 1,491 deaths.

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

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