COVID-19 cases, deaths remain flat in Clark County

New COVID-19 cases and deaths in Clark County held steady on Thursday, while test positivity rate and hospitalization numbers continued to improve.

Updated numbers posted online by the Southern Nevada Health District showed 405 new coronavirus cases and 21 deaths during the preceding day, pushing totals for the county to 328,623 cases and 5,894 deaths.

Both figures were on the high side of recent daily reports, but the longer-term gauges of the metrics remained flat.

New cases were above the two-week moving average of 298 per day. The two-week moving average of daily fatalities in the county also was unchanged at six.

The number of people hospitalized with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 in the county decreased by 42, to 461, according to data from the state Department of Health and Human Services.

The county’s 14-day test positivity rate, which tracks the percentage of people tested for COVID-19 who are found to be infected, fell by 0.1 percentage point to 6.4 percent.

Nevada, meanwhile, reported 653 new COVID-19 cases and 29 deaths over the preceding day. That brought state totals to 434,163 cases and 7,513 deaths.

Data guide: COVID-19’s impact on Nevada

It was the first time since early July that the state has reported fewer than 700 new cases on consecutive days, according to records maintained by the Review-Journal.

Nevada’s 14-day moving average of new cases held steady at 477 per day. The two-week average for fatalities also was unchanged at 10 per day.

State and county health agencies often redistribute 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.

Of the state’s other closely watched metrics, the two-week test positivity rate declined 0.1 percentage point to 7.3 percent, while the number of people in Nevada hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases fell to 628, 47 fewer than on Wednesday.

That figure, which has been falling since late August, has started to decline even more rapidly in the past few weeks, though the Nevada Hospital Association said Wednesday that hospital staffing remains a problem statewide.

As of Thursday’s report, state data show that 55.52 percent of Nevadans 12 and older had been fully vaccinated, compared to 54.76 percent in Clark County.

That number fluctuates widely throughout the state. Washoe County has the state’s highest vaccination rate, at 64.62 percent, while Storey County has the lowest at 19.99 percent.

Storey County also has the highest current test positivity rate in the state, at 33.3 percent.

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