COVID-19 test positivity rate still more than 20%

Nevada Deputy Administrator of Community Health Services was joined Wednesday by Dr. Mark Pandori, the state’s chief of testing, to provide the daily update on the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of Wednesday, Nevada had logged 222,594 cases, with the 14-day rolling average of daily cases at 1,654. The state has completed 2,068,519 molecular tests since the beginning of the pandemic, and the 14-day positivity rate over the past 14 days is 20.1%.

Currently, there are 1,988 patients hospitalized in Nevada with COVID-19, 1830 confirmed and 158 suspected.

Since COVID began in the state, a total of 45,111 cases have been identified as a result of contact tracing efforts statewide, representing 20.3% of the cases reported to date. There have been a total of 314,626 downloads of the COVID Trace app.

So far, 153 cases had the app at the time of their diagnosis, with 97 related exposure notifications sent as a result of those cases.

Pandori said Nevada will begin utilizing new equipment, and additional staff have been trained for the new year, allowing for greater testing capacity.

Preliminary data suggests that while the B117 variant of the virus might spread and infect more readily, but it appears to not cause more severe illness, Pandori added, noting the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine is not expected to be compromised.