Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak speaks during a news conference at the Sawyer State Building Thursday Aug. 5, 2021. The governor gave an update on the COVID-19 situation in Nevada.
Published Friday, Aug. 6, 2021 | 1:08 p.m.
Updated Friday, Aug. 6, 2021 | 6:05 p.m.
ELKO — Lawmakers in a rural northeast Nevada county have voted not to comply with a mask mandate that the governor reimposed to stem the spread of an aggressive coronavirus variant.
A crowded audience applauded the Elko County Commission vote on Wednesday to resist face coverings, the Elko Daily Free Press reported. The move applies to unincorporated areas and not to the cities of Elko, Carlin, Wells and West Wendover.
Businesses and the “emotional and physical well-being” of residents depend on refusing to wear masks, Commissioner Rex Steninger said as he sponsored the measure to direct county offices and agents to refuse to enforce the mandate.
The commission also directed staff to prepare an ordinance for a public hearing that would ban door-to-door efforts to encourage vaccinations.
Commission Chairman Jon Karr told the audience that commissioners weren’t for or against vaccines but opposed the door-to-door efforts.
Elko County has about 55,000 residents and votes solidly Republican. About 76% of the nearly 22,000 ballots cast in the county in the 2020 election went for former President Donald Trump. Democrat Joe Biden won Nevada and the presidency.
Steninger accused Democrats of “pretending the pandemic is worsening ... to reinstate mask mandates and businesses closing” and noted the commission voted in June to join an anti-federal government group that believes sheriffs have the final say on the constitutionality of a law.
But he said people who want to wear masks should feel comfortable doing so.
Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak last week reimposed a mask mandate for everyone, vaccinated or not, in indoor public places in Nevada cities.
He followed recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aimed at stemming a surge in infections and hospitalizations blamed on the delta variant of the virus that have not been seen since before the arrival of vaccines.
Sisolak's chief of staff, Michelle White, called the Elko County commissioners' move “unfortunate" but said Friday that the state is still encouraging everyone in that community to get vaccinated and wear a mask.
“No one wants to have these requirements in place. No one wants to have kids returning to schools in masks. No one wants to have their gatherings with masks and all these different requirements," she said. “But we're doing it because we have the information available and are trying to make the best decisions to protect the people of this state.”
Sisolak had lifted mask rules statewide in mid-May, following CDC guidelines at the time that vaccinated people didn’t need to wear face coverings.
The delta variant has gripped Nevada since then.
Sixty people in Elko County have died since COVID-19 first emerged in Nevada in March 2020. The state surpassed 6,000 deaths from COVID-19 on Friday.
As of Tuesday, there were 108 active COVID-19 cases and nine hospitalizations in Elko County, where fewer than one in three residents 12 and older has received at least one dose of vaccine, according to state health data.
Test positivity, a benchmark measure of community spread of the virus, has more than quadrupled in Nevada from a low of 3.4% in mid-May to 15.7% on Wednesday. The World Health Organization goal is 5% or less to relax restrictions.
In Elko County, the rate Wednesday was 18.8%.
