Nevada hits 1-day death toll high but reports less new cases

Nevada reported 71 new deaths from the coronavirus on Wednesday, surpassing its highest single-day death toll, which was reported last Saturday.

State COVID-19 response director Caleb Cage said the deaths were people who contracted the virus in mid-December, suggesting that reverberations from holiday gatherings could still be forthcoming.

"This is the highest increase in deaths that we've seen and a stark reminder of how deadly this virus is," Cage said.

State officials also reported 1,171 new confirmed cases on Wednesday. Since the start of the pandemic, 265,143 people have tested positive and 3,863 have died from the virus.

Although deaths continue to surge, the number of confirmed cases reported daily has stayed low throughout January — a trend that Cage said made him "cautiously optimistic" about the trajectory of the virus.

Since the start of the pandemic, more than 63% of those who have died in Nevada have been age 70 or older, which also the state's current cutoff for vaccine eligibility.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported Wednesday that the federal government has allocated 276,775 doses for Nevada — less per capita than all but three states.

Nevada has administered less than 42% of those doses, a shortcoming state officials attribute largely to unpredictable delivery of doses and communication breakdowns among federal agencies.

Nevada Health Bureau Chief Candice McDaniel said state officials had been told that states would be distributed vaccines in numbers proportionate to their populations and were "keenly aware" that Nevada's allocation was less than the majority of states.

Hours after President Joe Biden's inauguration, McDaniel said Nevada's vaccine coordination team was "hopeful that a little bit more transparency will come through, hopefully in the following weeks."

Washoe County Health District Officer Kevin Dick echoed McDaniel's concerns about allocations and delivery schedules, but said in the Reno-Sparks area, vaccine administration is outpacing the rest of the state.

More than 91% of doses the county has received have been distributed. It still could take 12 to 14 weeks to completely vaccinate individuals 70 and older with both doses, Dick said.

"I think we have seen what can happen at the federal level when politics gets mixed in with public health," he said.

Under the state's current policy, residents 70 and older are prioritized for the first available doses, but the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Tuesday reported about inconsistencies troubling the vaccine campaign.

As jurisdictions throughout the U.S. attempt to get shots into arms more quickly, the Southern Nevada Health District changed its criteria to allow the next eligible tier of frontline workers to receive vaccines.

The agency has not turned away individuals without appointments, including those younger than 70. Many older residents have had trouble making appointments and have yet to be vaccinated in the Las Vegas area, the newspaper reported.

AP writers Scott Sonner and Ken Ritter contributed reporting from Reno and Las Vegas. Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.