Masks are back in Las Vegas after regional health officials cited a rising number of coronavirus cases on Friday and advised everyone, vaccinated or not, to wear face coverings in crowds and indoors.
The Southern Nevada Health District recommendation is not a requirement. However, it does affect casinos, concerts and clubs where business has been booming since the restrictions were lifted and the state fully returned measures to fight the pandemic to the counties about seven weeks ago.
“Both vaccinated and unvaccinated people should wear masks when in crowded public areas … such as grocery stores, malls, major events, and casinos,” said Dr. Fermin Leguen, the area’s chief health officer, told reporters.
He said the district does not have the authority to make masks mandatory and is leaving that matter to the state, county and cities.
Vaccine clinics and testing will continue at sites across the region, Leguen added.
Vaccination rates have stalled in recent weeks in Nevada, a libertarian state where health officials reported Friday that about 55% of residents 12 and older received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Nationwide, around 46.3% are fully vaccinated.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 68% of adults nationwide have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
A union official who represents 60,000 casino workers in Nevada issued a statement highlighting the risks to workers from unvaccinated individuals.
Culinary Union official Geoconda Argüello-Kline pointed to CDC data showing that more than 97% of people recently hospitalized with COVID-19 have not received a vaccine.
The Las Vegas mask recommendation came after Nevada health officials reported 938 new cases of COVID-19 nationwide on Thursday – the largest one-day increase in coronavirus cases since February – and 15 new deaths.
It also followed a call from the Los Angeles chief of public health to Californians to reconsider their travel plans to Nevada until the number of COVID-19 cases in Silver State drops.
Weekend visitors from Southern California have blocked Interstate 15, the main route for the 435-kilometer route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, in recent months.
“I would recommend that you, especially if you are not vaccinated, reconsider traveling to places where seven-day COVID-19 case rates are rising or high, like our neighbor Nevada,” said Dr. Muntu Davis told Los Angeles County Commissioners on Tuesday.
Davis also recommended using masks indoors regardless of vaccination status.
Nevada Chief of Staff Steve Sisolak, Michelle White responded during a videoconference with reporters Thursday by suggesting that people travel to Nevada and get vaccinated.
“That’s why we’re working to have vaccination and testing sites in places like the Las Vegas Strip. It’s open to everyone, workers … visitors, ”White said. “We have all three vaccines on offer, including the one-shot. If someone comes from another state, that can be more convenient and we encourage everyone to do so. “
The Department of Health and Welfare said test positivity, a key marker of the percentage of people infected among those tested for the virus, tripled from 3.4% five weeks ago to 10.9% on Thursday.
The positivity reported by the State Department of Health and Human Services was 12.3% in the Las Vegas area.
The number of new cases reported in Nevada on Friday was 866 and six new deaths. This brings the number of people who have died in the state from COVID-19 in the state since March 2020 to 5,758.
Most of the Nevada cases and deaths during the pandemic occurred in the Las Vegas area, which is home to 2.3 million people and welcomes tens of millions of visitors annually.
On Friday, Washoe County health officials said they had no plans to implement mask requirements or recommendations because the virus had not increased as much in the Reno Sparks area as it did in Las Vegas.
Elsewhere, local officials from Lander County and Elko have recently focused on making preventive resolutions against vaccination passports.
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