More than 1.8 million doses of vaccine have now been administered to Nevadans and 44.3 percent of the state’s residents have gotten at least one shot.
Karissa Loper, who heads the state’s vaccination effort, said Monday 30.5 percent of folks have completed their vaccinations.
Task Force Director Caleb Cage said the positivity rate of those getting tested is once again going down. After dropping to just 4.2 percent several weeks ago, that rate climbed back as the state’s businesses began reopening, hitting 5.9 percent a week to 10 days ago. But it has since dropped back to 5.7 percent
There are, however a few hot spots around the state, including Carson City where the 14-day rolling average positivity was at 10.1 percent Monday morning.
Carson is also one of four Nevada counties flagged for increased risk of transmission. The others are Lyon, Lincoln and Elko counties. Lincoln and Lyon also have positivity rates just over 10 percent.
On May 1, most Nevada counties will see even more restrictions on gathering and business capacity go away. At that point, Cage said case numbers will again rise.
“As we reduce mitigation measures and go toward more reopening, we expect increased cases and spread but we don’t know how much,” he said.
He was joined by state biostatistician Kyra Morgan, who said Nevada just doesn’t have enough data on the virus and the impact of vaccines at this time, “so we don’t know if it’s going to be an alarming increase.”
Nevada has now recorded 313,680 cases of the virus and, as of Monday, had 324 people hospitalized with coronavirus.
With the blessing of the Centers for Disease Control, the state again has all three vaccines to give to people. CDC on Friday reauthorized the use of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Nevadans also have access to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that require two shots.
