Nevada adds most new COVID-19 cases in a day since January

Nevada on Wednesday reported 1,452 new coronavirus cases — the highest single-day total in more than seven months — and 29 deaths over the preceding day.

The updates posted by the Department of Health and Human Services pushed state totals to 392,052 COVID-19 cases and 6,539 deaths.

New cases in the Silver State were much higher than the two-week moving average, which nonetheless dropped to 893. The state no longer reports numbers on weekends, so updates on Mondays and Tuesday often are higher than the rest of the week. But no single-day increase has matched Wednesday’s mark since Jan. 23, when the state reported 1,501 new COVID-19 cases.

Totals for the month of August were 34,199 cases. The number of cases was the highest since January, when the state reported 58,880 cases.

Deaths were more than double the moving two-week average, which remained at 14 fatalities per day. The state reported 598 deaths in August, the most since February, when the death toll climbed by 687.

State and county health agencies often redistribute the daily data after it is reported to better reflect the date of death or a test 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.

Data guide: COVID-19’s impact on Nevada

And those trend lines continue to point downward, particularly in Southern Nevada.

The state’s two-week positivity rate, which essentially tracks the percentage of people tested for COVID-19 who are found to be infected, held steady at 12.3 percent, according to state data. That number is more than four percentage points below its recent high of 16.4 percent on Aug. 13.

Nevada also reported that 1,156 people in the state were hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases, two fewer than the day prior. The number of hospitalizations in the state has been slowly decreasing over the past few weeks.

The Nevada Hospital Association said in its weekly update Wednesday that hospitalizations are declining in the state as a whole, with numbers in Southern Nevada falling while the other parts of the state have seen stabilization.

“The NHA remains optimistic cases in the northern region are in decline but note that in the prior wave, the region experienced a pattern of multiple declines and increases in hospitalizations before cresting,” the trade group said.

That was clear again in Wednesday’s data. Washoe County now has a 14-day test positivity rate of 18.7 percent, a much higher number than the recent statewide peak of 16.4 percent on Aug. 14. The county also reported 388 new cases on Wednesday, the most since Jan. 7, according to Washoe County district health officer Kevin Dick.

The county was seeing about 20 cases each day at the beginning of July, he noted, but is now averaging 283 a day over the previous seven days.

Remembering those we’ve lost to COVID-19

“It’s unfortunate, but it’s very clear that majority of new cases and deaths that we have of our residents are preventable because they occurred in unvaccinated individuals,” Dick said at a news briefing. “What’s causing the spread of COVID-19 in our community is that reservoir that COVID-19 has in unvaccinated people where it propagates and exposes other people to COVID-19.”

Dick noted that smoke from California wildfires blanketing much of the northern part of the state may be contributing to the surge in cases, as it can cause inflammation that makes it easier for COVID-19 to spread.

Meanwhile, the Southern Nevada Health District reported 754 new coronavirus cases and 19 deaths, bringing cumulative totals to 304,856 cases and 5,237 deaths. Numbers in the county have started to drop over the last few weeks, although the case rate is still well over the 100 per 100,000 threshold used by the Centers for Disease and Control to mark a “high rate of transmission.”

Clark County’s two-week test positivity rate, which has dropped rapidly in recent weeks, held steady at 11.0 percent.

As of Wednesday’s report, 51.87 percent of Nevadans age 12 and older had been fully vaccinated.

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