COVID-19 ‘rebounding’ in Clark County, report says

Clark County’s COVID-19 metrics increased again in a weekly report released Wednesday, as the Nevada Hospital Association warned that the disease is “rebounding” in Southern Nevada.

“We are always concerned to see rates of illness increase in our community,” Dr. Fermin Leguen, district health officer for the Southern Nevada Health District, said in a news release. “The positive news is that we have very effective preventive and treatment measures available to us. People need to be fully vaccinated and boosted, if they do test positive and are high-risk, seek treatment, and continue to take precautions to protect themselves and others.”

Most metrics have been on the rise for months, but the rate of the increase has gone up in recent weeks. The county’s two-week moving average of daily new cases increased to 491 from 348 last week, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the county’s case rate per 100,000 people was at 154.63, well above the 110.69 reported last week.

That number is well below the peak of the omicron-driven surge in the winter, when it was over 1,000.

The county’s seven-day test positivity rate also increased, to 22.8 percent from 18.8 percent last week. That number, which has been de-emphasized by public health officials because it does not include results from at-home tests, has been increasing for over a month.

Hospitalizations also followed the trend, with the state Department of Health and Human Services reporting that 191 people were hospitalized with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 in the county.

“COVID hospitalizations are increasing; however, this is not placing any unreasonable demands on the health care infrastructure,” the hospital association said in its weekly release.

While most metrics have risen quickly, deaths have stayed relatively flat during the current wave. The two-week moving average of daily deaths was at one for both the county and state, according to data from department.

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. That has been clear in recent weeks, especially with death reporting. State agencies have reported a high number of deaths each week, even when the majority of those came weeks or months earlier and are only being reported now.

Most state numbers followed similar trends. The state’s two-week moving average of daily new cases increased to 610 from 429. Cumulative totals stood at 677,564 cases and 10,872 deaths.

Hospitalizations also increased, jumping to 218 from 202 last week.

As of Wednesday, state data showed that 57.38 percent of Nevadans 5 or older were considered fully vaccinated, compared with 56.73 percent in Clark County.

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