Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak and Lt. Gov. Lisa Cano Burkhead responds to questions from reporters during a visit to the Horizon Ridge Wellness Clinic on East Flamingo Road Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021. The visit was part of Protect Nevadas Future week of action, a statewide effort to vaccinate children ages 5 to 11 years against COVID-19 from Dec. 18 to 23.
Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022 | 2:57 p.m.
Nevada is getting over 500,000 at-home COVID-19 test kits to distribute to residents, Gov. Steve Sisolak announced today.
Paid for by federal COVID relief funding, the first shipment of Flexflow antigen tests is expected at the end of January, Sisolak said.
The tests will be delivered to 90 health care clinics, fire departments, libraries and other places where people can pick them up.
The kits will help meet a growing need for testing as the virus surges with the spread of the highly contagious omicron variant.
“I’ve been working the team at the state level to ensure we are doing all we can to meet this demand for testing and to build a more sustainable testing model,” Sisolak said.
Sisolak said the state will order more tests in the future so “as we live with COVID, the supply chain does not dictate access for Nevadans.”
People will be able to go online to find the nearest place to pick up a test kit.
If the test comes back positive, people should self-isolate to prevent spreading the virus, Sisolak said. He encouraged everyone who is sick or exposed to the virus to seek a test.
The at-home antigen tests are most accurate when a person is symptomatic, said Julia Peek, deputy administrator of the Division of Public and Behavioral Health. Those who test positive should inform any close contacts of the results, Peek said.
“This moment in time is very different from where we found ourselves in March of 2020,” early in the pandemic, Peek said. “We have incredibly powerful tools that help fight the virus. The most powerful of which are the COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics."
“We completely understand the level of COVID fatigue you all have and want to say that our teams are equally fatigued,” Peek said. “But we are doing everything in our power to provide the resources you need to keep yourself and your family healthy, your kids in school, hospital beds open and our economy growing.”
Sisolak urged all Nevadans to get vaccinated and boosted as soon as they are eligible.
“Vaccines are widely available and they help prevent severe cases of COVID-19, hospitalizations and deaths,” he said.
For more information on the testing initiative, consult the Nevada Health Response website.
