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Washoe County officials urge socially distant Cinco de Mayo celebrations, say hospitalizations not declining yet

Megan Messerly
Megan Messerly
Coronavirus
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Washoe County Health District officials are urging people to be cautious as they make Cinco de Mayo plans after Easter celebrations appeared to cause a spike of 48 new COVID-19 cases on Friday.

Washoe County District Health Officer Kevin Dick said on a press call with reporters on Monday that health district officials are taking a “wait and see” approach with the recent case spike but that there is a concern that those 48 individuals may have gone on to infect other people. He urged Cinco de Mayo revelers to “celebrate in a way that protects you, protects others, and keeps our community moving forward in response to this.”

Dick said that he was, however, hopeful that there were only 11 new COVID-19 cases reported Monday. Still, he said that the number of hospitalizations in Washoe County — one of Gov. Steve Sisolak’s metrics for starting to reopen Nevada’s economy — isn’t yet declining.

“It’s been sort of flat with a little uptick, perhaps,” Dick said.

Dick said that Washoe County has submitted its report to the Local Empowerment Advisory Panel, or LEAP, detailing the county’s progress in meeting the criteria for reopening laid out by the governor. He said that Washoe County has “good plans” in place for contact tracing, which is one of the criteria for reopening, with Nevada National Guard staff assisting in that capacity and county staff across other departments lending a hand.

However, Dick noted that as the economy begins reopening, county staff will have to return to their other positions and the National Guard will also stand down in the future, which will leave the health district again with a gap.

“We’re working on our plans for filling those positions and having everybody in place moving forward,” Dick said.

Dick was less sure, however, about the availability of personal protective equipment in the county, another part of the governor’s criteria for reopening. He said that Washoe County doesn’t have a full picture of the need for PPE in the community because many medical offices and dental facilities have either closed or been operating under a limited capacity, and therefore using less PPE. It’s also not clear, he said, what other businesses may require PPE as they begin to reopen.

“We don’t fully understand at this point what the requirements are going to be in those businesses and what PPE needs there may be,” Dick said. “So we provided the information that we have and there are still some uncertainties about what the future needs may be.”

Dick said that the county reconfigured its drive-through testing site over the weekend to add additional collection stations, allowing them to now test 900 people a day and could ramp up to 1,800 a day if need be. However, he noted that only 200 people came through the county’s drive through testing location on Monday morning and urged all symptomatic people to contact the health district to set up an appointment for testing.

“Anybody that has symptoms, we have testing capacity for you. The test is free,” Dick said. “If anyone has allergies that are more severe this year than normal or if you have allergies this year that you haven’t experienced in the past, please contact us and come through for testing in case that is COVID-19.”

He said that the testing site likely won’t begin to test 900 people a day until the state expands its testing criteria, which have up to this point have only advised that symptomatic individuals be tested. As of Monday morning, the health district had 690 test collection kits on hand — the availability of which has been one of the limiting factors in COVID-19 testing — and Dick said the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory has been supplying the health district with between 200 and 300 collection kits a day.

Though the situation appears to be improving, Dick continued to urge caution among residents.

“I think people may be becoming a little bit more relaxed and have lost some of the focus initial on how they’re protecting themselves and others,” Dick said. “I think it’s very very important that we continue to remind ourselves and emphasize the importance of those practices of us to be able to move forward and succeed in our response.”

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