All but two Nevada counties again flagged for COVID risk

All Nevada counties, with the exceptions of Storey and White Pine, were flagged this week for elevated disease transmission, said Julia Peek, deputy administrator of community health services and Dr. Carmen Ponce, an epidemiologist with the state Department of Health and Human Services during the state’s daily COVID-19 update for the media on Monday.

Storey and White Pine counties were flagged for only one of the three criteria, with Storey not reaching the bar for average number of tests per day and White Pine reporting a high case rate per 100,000 over the past 30 days. All flagged counties met the criteria of a high case rate per 100,000 and a high test positivity rate.

Lincoln was the only county flagged for all three criteria. Nye County was flagged for its high case rate of 743 per 100,000 and its high test positivity rate of 22.0% over the past 14 days.

As of Monday, the state has logged 250,249 cases of COVID-19, with the 14-day rolling average of 1,866. Nevada has completed 2,235,084 molecular tests, and the test positivity rate over the past 14 days is 21.1%.

The Nevada Hospital Association reports there are currently 1,777 COVID-19 hospitalizations (1,649 confirmed; 128 suspected), and more information on hospitalization trends can be found on the Nevada Hospital Association website.

Peek and Ponce devoted much of their briefing to discussing COVID-19 vaccines, saying the vaccine has been vigorously tested with tens of thousands of clinical trials. The FDA has provided an emergency use authorization to COVID-19 vaccines, one created by Moderna and the other by Pfizer-BioNTech. But while these have been deemed safe, there still could be side effects from vaccinations.

Possible symptoms of the COVID-19 vaccine include injection site pain, fatigue, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, fever, injection site swelling, injection site redness, nausea and swollen lymph nodes. All of these symptoms typically have been transitory with mild intensity.

There is a remote chance that the vaccine could cause a severe allergic reaction, and signs will include difficulty breathing, swelling of face and throat, accelerated heartbeat, rash, dizziness and weakness.

People getting the vaccine should be prepared to stay in the facility for 15 minutes after vaccination, and if anybody has a severe allergic reaction, please inform the medical provider and be prepared to stay in the facility at least 30 minutes.

The effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine is 90%. In the past, diseases have been eradicated with vaccines with 80% or 85% effectiveness.