Nevada deaths related to coronavirus rise to 112

LAS VEGAS — The number of confirmed coronavirus infections across Nevada climbed to 2,836 on Sunday as related deaths increased to 112.

State health officials tallied the new infections Sunday on a website dedicated to the virus outbreak. Nearly 25,000 tests for COVID-19 have been performed statewide.

Leaders of a popular vacation spot on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe on Sunday urged second-home owners to stay away.

Incline Village leaders in a statement Sunday warned that health care resources for the mountain-lake community would be easily overwhelmed by a coronavirus outbreak. They highlighted a spate of COVID-19 infections in Truckee, California.

Among the new deaths from COVID-19 in Nevada was a man in his 90s from Washoe County that extends across Reno.

University Medical Center in Las Vegas has begun prescribing hydroxychloroquine to nonhospitalized coronavirus patients with fever and mild pneumonia.

"Certainly if you are working here or in New York, you want to be able to help the patients, and right now this is the best we have," hospital emergency medical physician Thomas Zyniewicz told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in a videotaped interview.

President Donald Trump has been talking up hydroxychloroquine, a drug long used to treat malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, after very small preliminary studies suggested it might help prevent coronavirus from entering cells and possibly help patients clear the virus sooner.

The drug has major potential side effects, and the Food and Drug Administration says people should not take it without a prescription.

Research studies are beginning to test if the drug truly helps COVID-19 patients, and the FDA has allowed the drugs into the national stockpile as an option for doctors to consider for patients who cannot get into one of the studies.