Nevada Army National Guard member Katherine Deskins gives a COVID-19 vaccination to Jasmine Ghazinour, a Clark County Fire captain, at Cashman Field Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021. The vaccinations to public safety workers are part of a pilot program for a larger mass vaccination effort, officials said.
Friday, Jan. 22, 2021 | 3:31 p.m.
The number of patients requiring hospitalization for COVID-19 continues to fall statewide, although much of the decrease can be credited to Northern Nevada, according to a report from the Nevada Hospital Association.
“We’re seeing significant declines in the north, but not so much in the south. We don’t really have an explanation for that at this time,” hospital association executive director Dr. Chris Lake told the state COVID-19 task force. “The south is relatively flat — some gradual declines, which I guess is good news, but the numbers remain pretty high.”
The association says Nevada hospitals had 1,549 COVID-19 patients as of Thursday, with 1,402 confirmed coronavirus cases and 147 suspected cases.
But the overall occupancy rate is at 77% for Las Vegas-area hospitals, 41% of which are COVID patients.
“All cause intensive care use remains elevated,” the association reported. “Occupancy rates at several facilities are at near capacity.”
But in Northern Nevada, “the health care system is demonstrating signs of normalization.”
State biostatistician Kyra Morgan told the task force that it’s possible statewide coronavirus hospitalizations have peaked. Nevada’s high point was Dec. 22, with 2,126 total patients, and has been trending down since.
This has the state heading into the weekend “with a declining trajectory of confirmed COVID-19 cases,” the association said in its daily report. “If this trend continues, hospitalized case counts should be below the 500 mark by late February.”
