Clark County reports slight uptick in COVID-19 cases, with 41 new cases and one deathFree

Clark County recorded 41 new COVID-19 cases and one new death Wednesday as a weeks-long decline in disease activity continued to level out, according to data from Clark County Public Health.

The fatality was a man in his 70s with an underlying health condition, according to Public Health data. His death raises the number of deaths from COVID-19 to 229 to date. The last fatality had been reported Friday.

The new cases boost the county’s total number of COVID-19 cases to 18,626 to date. The county has recorded an average of about 32 new cases a day since Friday, a faster pace than last week’s average of about 29 cases a day but far below the peak rate of about 180 cases per day in the first week of January.

Other measures also showed a slight uptick. There were 193 active cases on Wednesday, up from 188 on Tuesday, according to Public Health data. There were 19 people hospitalized with COVID-19. up from 17 on Tuesday, and three people hospitalized awaiting test results, up from one on Tuesday.

New data showing test positivity from the week of Feb. 14 through Feb. 20 also showed a slight increase, with a positivity rate of 4.79 percent with 246 positive results from 5,133 tests, up from a rate of 3.47 percent the previous week, when the county had 254 positive tests out of 7,322 administered, according to Public Health data.

Public Health reported that 75 percent of licensed ICU beds were occupied as of Wednesday, up from 73.4 percent on Tuesday, in a metric used to show medical systems’ readiness for potential surges of cases. Public Health also reported that 3.8 percent of all licensed hospital beds were occupied Wednesday, up from 3.1 percent on Tuesday.