By Scott Sonner Associated Press
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
RENO — Staffing levels at Las Vegas-area hospitals remain in the worst "crisis" category for the second week in a row as Nevada's COVID-19 positivity test rate soars to new heights and schools scramble to respond to the state's worst coronavirus surge to date.
Nearly one in three people taking COVID-19 tests outside the home are testing positive as the apparently less-severe but more-contagious omicron variant fuels the virus that's spreading statewide faster than ever, health officials said Wednesday.
"We are in an extremely transmissive phase that is beyond anything we have seen before," said Washoe County Health District Officer Kevin Dick, who called it a "tsunami ... a tremendous surge."
"Nearly all the cases that we are experiencing now in our community are omicron," Dick told reporters in Reno. "That's why we are seeing the dramatic, almost vertical, increase in our case curve from day to day."
The seven-day moving average for confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations in Southern Nevada now exceeds 1,190 for the first time since January 2021, the Nevada Hospital Association said Wednesday.
"There is no indication that hospitalizations have peaked and increases in COVID-19 hospital demand are anticipated for the next several weeks," it said in its weekly update.
