Clark County recorded more than 1,000 new cases of COVID-19, its biggest announced jump from the outbreak in one day, and Nevada reported more than 1,100 cases and 19 additional deaths the previous day, according to data released Tuesday.
The Southern Nevada Health District reported 1,021 new cases on its coronavirus website, bringing the county’s total number of cases to 24,824. The district estimates that 16,662 of those patients have recovered.
That was the highest single-day increase announced by the district, topping the 971 new cases reported on June 27.
The district also reported 15 additional deaths, increasing the death toll in the county to 498.
New cases were well above the daily average of just over 712 during the previous week, while deaths were also well above the daily average of just over six during the period.
The health district also announced 39 additional hospitalizations the previous day, well above the daily average of nearly 28 during the previous week.
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Meanwhile, the state Department of Health and Human Services reported 1,104 new cases and 19 additional deaths.
Data published on the agency’s nvhealthresponse.nv.gov website raised the state’s total case to 29,619 and the death toll to 612. Reports from local health districts and counties put the total case slightly. highest, at 29,665 late Tuesday.
Caleb Cage, the state’s head of pandemic response, said at a news conference that the July 4 holiday likely played a role in the current surge in cases in Nevada and Clark County.
“We believe that many of the new cases in this recent surge come from the July 4 weekend,” Cage said, calling the finding troubling.
It was the third time the state reported more than 1,000 cases in one day and was the second-highest total after the 1,159 cases reported on June 26.
New cases were well above the daily average of nearly 801 during the previous week, while deaths were well above the daily average of eight during the period.
Cage and Julia Peek, a top Nevada community health administrator, noted that the daily total included about 400 cases behind schedule in reports from two Las Vegas-area labs.
The state and the Nevada Hospital Association have also reported an increase in hospitalizations in recent weeks, limited by a record of 983 suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients hospitalized as of Monday.
The hospital association says COVID-19 patients account for 16 percent of the state’s occupied hospital beds.
Hospitals in southern Nevada are not full, the association said, with 80 percent of hospital beds occupied, 88 percent of intensive care unit beds and 44 percent of ventilators in use. .
The state’s infection or positivity rate, considered a better barometer of the outbreak trend than daily case and death reports, increased for the sixth consecutive day and for 26 of the last 27 days to 8.24 percent.
The rate, the number of confirmed cases divided by the number of people examined, decreased steadily over a period of more than two months before reaching 5.20 percent on June 17. Since then, it has been steadily going up.
Both the health district and the state redistribute cases after they are announced in an attempt to better reflect the outbreak, so the detailed breakdowns provided by the district often do not match daily totals.
Contact Mike Brunker at [email protected] or 702-383-4656. Follow @mike_brunker on Twitter. Associated Press contributed to this report.
