Dr. Fermin Leguen, District Health Officer, speaks outside of the Southern Nevada Health District Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021.
Published Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022 | 1:09 p.m.
Updated Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022 | 3:36 p.m.
Coronavirus hospitalizations are continuing to climb in Clark County but at a slower pace, the Nevada Hospital Association said today.
In its weekly report, the association kept its assessment of Southern Nevada hospital staffing at the “crisis” level for the fourth straight week.
Clark County hospitals had 1,574 confirmed COVID-19 patients as of Tuesday, driven by the omicron variant, according to the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services.
While omicron appears less severe than other variants, “the sheer volume of cases is stressing the hospitals, combined with employee illness and required isolation days,” the report says.
Scott Black, chairman of the Southern Nevada Health District Board of Health and a North Las Vegas city councilman, said the crunch at local hospitals hit home for him this week when his elderly father had an emergency medical episode.
Black said his father, who has since improved, got the best care staff could give him, but in a hallway instead of a room.
“They did not have a bed available for him and all the other mostly elderly folks lining the hallways because there were 167 individuals admitted at this particular hospital with COVID,” Black said.
Some 95% of those COVID patients were unvaccinated, he said. He did not name the hospital.
“I know when you hear hospitals are full, staffing is short — you hear get tested, get vaccinated, you hear all these things — sometimes that becomes noise over time and it gets tuned out until it becomes personal,” Black said.
Dr. Fermin Leguen, SNHD’s health officer, said new case reports have consistently been declining over the last week.
But with 2,540 cases reported today and a test positivity rate averaging 31.5%, transmission remains high, he said.
The Health District also reported 35 COVID-related deaths today.
Dr. Cassius Lockett, the Health District's director of disease surveillance, noted that on Jan. 9, Clark County had a seven-day rolling average of 42.8% test positivity and 4,714 daily new cases.
On Jan. 22, the daily case average had dropped to 2,262.
“A (52%) reduction over a two-week span is a good sign,” Lockett said. “However, we still need to see the test positivity rate continue to fall until it is below 10%.”
He encouraged people to keep getting tested. The recently opened mass testing sites at the Texas Station and Fiesta Henderson casinos have given more than 24,000 tests combined in their first two weeks of operations.
The Health District added a large testing clinic this week at the Clark County Fairgrounds in Logandale to serve the rural communities northwest of Las Vegas.
Today, the Health District expanded free access to the antiviral drug Paxlovid to symptomatic, COVID-positive patients as young as 12 who are at higher risk for severe illness. The Health District had previously restricted the treatment to patients older than 65.
Criteria for Paxlovid are listed at www.snhd.info/paxlovid.
