Nevada vaccinations approach 200,000 as numbers slowly improve

As of this week, 194,930 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Nevada.

COVID task force Director Caleb Cage said that comes with the announcement by federal officials Tuesday that many states will soon see an increase on allocations of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

In addition, Cage said federal officials have said states should be able to see allocations for up to three weeks at a time, a response to state complaints that they haven’t been able to predict how many doses they will get week to week. He said that will help greatly in planning and operations on the ground.

Cage said it doesn’t make sense to set up mass vaccination operations to open for a few days, then close them down because they run out of vaccines.

As for those who have been vaccinated, he said the state and counties are closely tracking when people are due for their second shot and ordering the number of doses for that. Those second doses, he said, are waiting to be ordered and shipped to Nevada.

As of Wednesday, Nevada has logged 273,873 cases of the virus. But the 14-day rolling average of new cases has fallen to 1,144 from a high of more than 3,000. In addition, the positivity rate has fallen from more than 21 percent to 18.6 percent. Hospitalizations are at 1,400, but that too is down a bit from its high.