Clark County Commission considering COVID mitigation measures

Image

Steve Marcus

Tourists ride escalators to Planet Hollywood and the Miracle Mile Shops on the Las Vegas Strip Saturday, April 17, 2021.

Tue, Jul 20, 2021 (noon)

The Clark County Commission will meet today to address rising COVID-19 cases in the Las Vegas area.

The agenda for today’s emergency meeting says the commission will “take possible action in implementing measures to mitigate the infection rate.”

It doesn’t explicitly say what kinds of measures might be proposed or how they could be enforced, but the meeting comes a few days after the Southern Nevada Health District recommended people wear masks in indoor public spaces even if they’ve been vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Gov. Steve Sisolak loosened the statewide mask mandate in May after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that fully vaccinated people don’t need to wear masks in most indoor settings.

Local governments took over other pandemic responses, including physical distancing rules and capacity limits, from the state earlier in May.

By June 1, Clark County no longer had distancing, capacity or mask rules, heralding Las Vegas’ “full reopening” and embracing a return to the level of tourism the region needs to hold up its economy.

Disease spread, however, has picked up dramatically around the state and particularly in Clark County in the last few weeks. Public health experts attribute this to COVID-19’s delta variant and people remaining unvaccinated against the virus.

As of today, Clark County was averaging 579 new cases a day, with 13.8% of COVID tests returning positive. Local hospitals had 757 people hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 cases, representing more than 90% of all confirmed hospitalized patients in the state.

As of June 1, the county had 155 confirmed hospitalizations and a test positivity rate of 3.7%.

The meeting starts at 1 p.m. and can be streamed at www.ClarkCountyNV.gov or https://www.youtube.com/ClarkCountyNV.

Back to top

SHARE