Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak gives briefing about the coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in Nevada during a news conference at the Sawyer State Building Saturday, March 7, 2020.
Saturday, March 7, 2020 | 1:42 p.m.
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As Nevada manages the possible spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Steve Sisolak today announced the federal government has provisionally approved testing for the virus at commercial labs throughout the state.
Sisolak at a late morning briefing said Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp will be able to test for COVID-19 in the “near future,” joining the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory at UNR and the Southern Nevada Public Health Laboratory, which each already has conducted a handful of tests leading to at least 14 negative results as of Friday.
Hours after Sisolak petitioned Vice President Mike Pence’s COVID-19 Task Force on Friday to expand testing in Nevada, his office received confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the public labs will be receiving additional resources to test “thousands more people,” Sisolak said.
As of Saturday, there were two Nevada residents with presumptive positive tests for the virus. Officials are waiting confirmation of the results from the CDC. Nationally, they are more than 230 confirmed cases across 18 states, including 16 deaths — mostly in Washington state.
Worldwide, the novel virus — which is believed to have originated in China in late 2019 — has infected more than 100,000 people, bringing 3,400 deaths in about 90 countries.
The Clark County resident who tested positive was hospitalized in isolation at a VA Southern Nevada Healthcare System facility, where he remained in serious condition as of Friday, the Southern Nevada Health District said. He was only described as a man in his 50s with “underlying medical conditions.”
He had a travel history to Texas and Washington state, but it wasn’t clear if officials knew where he was infected. Both states have confirmed cases of the virus.
The patient didn’t show coronavirus symptoms — fever, breathing difficulties and a cough — during his travels. Those who would have encountered him at airports or had limited interactions with him weren’t at a high risk for infection, the health district said.
A man who tested positive for coronavirus in the Reno-area on Thursday was in “self-isolation at home,” Sisolak said. Officials believe he was exposed to the virus on a Grand Princess cruise ship that disembarked on Feb. 21. There were 40 Nevadans aboard the ship, and "I’m proud to say that Nevada’s local health authorities responded immediately to contact and assess all passengers for sign of illness," Sisolak said.
Negative results also came back on students of a Washoe County elementary school, including a child who is a family member of the infected man. Sisolak called that the “best news of the week.”
He encouraged residents to not panic, but to prepare instead, to wash their hands, avoid close contact with sick people and to disinfect surfaces.
“In the past week, there were road bumps and challenges, but every Nevadan should join me in being proud of our local and state health authorities, and the collaboration and communication exhibited between our local, state and federal leaders,” Sisolak said. “We learned lessons, we improved, we identified needs, and we made the calls. I can tell you this, the CDC is listening.”
