Lincoln first county at low COVID risk

As Nevada continues to make significant strides to curb the spread of the coronavirus, one county has made an encouraging leap.

Lincoln County did not have a positive COVID-19 case for two weeks, a spokesman for the state Department of Health and Human services told the Review-journal.

The county did record a few positive results on Tuesday, the spokesman said, but those were not reflected in Wednesday’s reporting.

Still, the county — a rural area with a population of just over 5,000 — managed to hit the milestone and become the only county in the state that dropped below of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “high” or “substantial” transmission tiers. State data showed that Lincoln County had conducted an average of 475 daily tests per 100,000 people over the last 14 days, a higher rate than the state’s average.

Lincoln County was still in the “low” vaccination tier on Wednesday, according to the CDC’S website.

The county’s vaccination rate also is low compared to the state as a whole, with 34.24 percent of residents fully vaccinated as of Wednesday compared to 54.42 percent for the state. Because the county has such a small population compared to others in the state, a slight increase in the number of positive tests could cause its COVID-19 metrics to jump significantly.

Lincoln County’s drop in numbers came as the state has shown encouraging recent signs in the fight against COVID-19. Clark County and Nevada as a whole have seen key metrics like test positivity rate, daily new cases and hospitalizations continue to drop as the state recovered from the summer wave of the disease.