Strikeout! Aviators, Minor League Baseball denied playing 2020 season State tops in transmission

Website finds each COVID-19 case results in 1.56 more cases

A COVID-19 tracking website built by the co-founders of Instagram shows that Nevada currently has the highest rate of coronavirus transmission in the country.

The rt.live website calculates that each case of COVID-19 in Nevada is resulting in 1.56 new infections.

The finding comes as the state has been reporting record numbers of newly diagnosed cases, an indication that the virus is spreading quickly.

“I don’t think we can disagree that we’re seeing a lot of transmission in Nevada,” Brian Labus, a member of Gov. Steve Sisolak’s medical advisory team, said Tuesday.

The website is the work of Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, co-founders of Instagram, the photo- and video-sharing social networking service, and data scientist Tom Vladeck, owner of Gradient Metrics.

The data used is from The COVID Tracking Project, a respected data aggregator launched by The Atlantic

increases in the daily number of new positive tests, rates of infection among those tested and hospitalizations. More than half of Nevada’s cumulative total cases — 53 percent of the 18,456 reported from March 5 through Monday, came in June alone. Confirmed and suspected COVID-19 hospitalizations as of Monday were 62 percent higher than they were on June 1 — 593 compared with 365. Ventilator use was up by two-thirds — 65 from 39, and ICU use up 52 percent — 134 from 88.

Nevada’s cumulative positive test rate was at 5.8 percent at the start of June and dipped to 5.2 percent by mid-month but now stands at 6.7 percent.

The seven-day rolling average rate, as low as 5 percent this month, stands at 16 percent for the past seven days.

The state was to release more data, possibly by Wednesday.

Peek and Caleb Cage, the state’s COVID-19 response director, reviewed some additional data Tuesday and promised more in the forthcoming report.

COVID-19 infection in June has shifted to a younger demographic, with more than half of all Nevada cases reported among people ages 20-49; 42 percent are Hispanic.

Peek said the state is implementing a “targeted strategy of outreach and enforcement to support counties most impacted by COVID-19.”

The outreach will include a new state hotline, managed by the Department of Business and Industry, to take complaints on businesses that are not complying with directives on reopening, distancing, or wearing facial coverings, as well as increased “unannounced business surveillance” and promoting compliance through business groups.

Also, the COVID-19 prevention “ambassador program” will work with communities hit hardest by infection, such as the Hispanic population.

Peek and Cage said officials were closely watching data on hospitalizations as a potential precursor to a possible surge in deaths from the disease.

Serious illness or mortality tends to lag initial diagnosis by three to four weeks.

Even though June cases “are primarily a younger group of people who may have lesser symptoms and may recover with no issues, the issue with them having cases is a potential threat to our vulnerable population,” Peek said.

She added that analysis of the outbreak in Nevada shows a predominance of the European strain of the coronavirus as opposed to the strain that originated in Wuhan, China. Research shows the European strain to be potentially less severe but more infectious, she said.

Contact Capital Bureau reporter Bill Dentzer at bdentzer@ reviewjournal.com. Follow @Dentzernews on Twitter.