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Las Vegas-area hospitals are adding beds and staff to accommodate an increasing number of COVID-19 patients...Hospital occupancy was not high enough to require activation a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan developed in April to use the Las Vegas Convention Center for up to 900 patients...Acute-care hospitals in Clark County added 441 staffed beds...according to data from the Nevada Hospital Association. Another 49 were added in other parts of the state...Dan McBride, chief medical officer for the Valley Health System, said medical facilities in the region are not in danger of being overrun...READ MORE

A majority of Nevada doctors believe they can only keep their doors open for another two to six months unless the volume of patients trickling back into their offices significantly increases, according to a new survey from the American Medical Association...Ten percent of physicians in Nevada reported layoffs, 15 percent reported pay cuts, 20 percent reported temporary furloughs and 30 percent reported a reduction in staff hours, while 55 percent reported none of those changes, according to preliminary results from the survey, which Dr. Ron Swanger, president of the Nevada State Medical Association, presented to the Patient Protection Commission...READ MORE

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned this week that some coronavirus antibody tests are inaccurate and cautioned that even the better tests should not be used to determine who can safely return to work or school...“Suffice to say, CDC is adequately worried about all the junk (antibody) tests that FDA let out on the market,” Mark Pandori, the director of Nevada State Public Health Laboratory, said...The CDC’s guidance comes at a time when public health agencies in Nevada are ramping up to offer the antibody tests to the public...READ MORE

As the COVID-19 pandemic started to become more prevalent in Nevada, three medical school students at Touro University Nevada quickly responded to help serve Southern Nevada’s needs...By late March, they launched a website to gather student volunteers to address these needs — from online tutoring, dog walking and even disseminating falsehoods about the virus...“We all as medical students want to help, it’s just in our nature,” said Cassandra McDiarmid, who plans to go into obstetrics and gynecology when she finishes school...“We (Ashlie Bloom, Parisun Shoga) saw there was a need for clinical assistance, but wanted to have something that was not clinical-related such as tutoring and grocery shopping to help out in any way we could,” she said. “We were trying to come up with a way to put all this information in one place and make it easily accessible.”...READ MORE

New technology to disinfect N95 masks worn by health care workers is now in Nevada, but a major nurses union is questioning the effectiveness of the process...The Battelle Critical Care Decontamination System has been used to clean more than 1,700 of the N95 masks since early May. It uses vaporized hydrogen peroxide to kill the novel coronavirus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19...The new sanitization process is intended to make that equipment last even longer if necessary...Battelle says the system can clean a mask for up to 20 reuses, but National Nurses United, the country’s largest union of registered nurses, has repeatedly called for the process to be halted immediately...Union president Zenei Cortez wrote in a statement that union members reported their decontaminated masks came back deformed and their straps had lost elasticity. The masks’ ability to filter out dangerous particles depends on their snug facial fit...Similar concerns were also raised by a local hospital worker and member of the Nevada chapter of Service Employees International Union...READ MORE

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak has touted open government as a crucial aspect to the state’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak. “You deserve transparency,” he proclaimed during an April 8 news conference, a statement reflecting the Nevada Public Records Act’s promise of open access to most government documents...But records vital to evaluating how Sisolak’s administration and state agencies have navigated the unprecedented emergency have proved difficult to obtain...Even a simple request for daily reports on hospital capacity made in early April, which would have spanned only a few pages at the time, was met with a response from a senior policy analyst in Sisolak’s office to wait “eight to 10 weeks” to receive the record...Among the requested documents that state agencies have delayed in producing or denied access to are the following:

■ Emergency management plans related to disease outbreaks or widespread health emergencies. Officials took more than 40 days to deny the request.

■ Documents tracking testing of prison inmates and staff for COVID-19. Denied by officials after 13 days.

■ Written communications among top prison officials about COVID-19 testing. Officials said they would respond “in the next 45 days.”

■ Records related to Nevada’s government stockpile of personal protective gear for medical workers. Officials said it will take “eight to ten weeks or longer” to compile the documents....READ MORE

The two-month casino shutdown in Nevada seems to have an end in sight...On Friday afternoon, Gov. Steve Sisolak gave Nevada casinos a tentative date they could plan to reopen: June 4. Seventy-eight days after casinos first closed down to help stem the spread of COVID-19...The move comes as the state has faced an increasing amount of pressure to reopen; Nevada’s unemployment rate hit record highs in April, and casinos in 12 other states had opened their doors ahead of those in Sin City...Virginia Valentine, president and CEO of the Nevada Resort Association, said Sisolak’s announcement is “fantastic news” for Nevada’s gaming industry...“Our members have spent more than two months preparing for this day,” she said in an emailed statement. “They’ve put in place enhanced health and safety plans and protocols … Our members are excited to show off the enhancements they’ve made that preserve the experience while ensuring the well-being of our employees and visitors.”...Casinos have been preparing for this day for weeks, publishing updated health and safety guidelines and setting tentative booking dates online to make sure they’d have guests ready to fill rooms...READ MORE

‘We’re ready to go back’
Tourists ready to return
All eyes on the Gaming Control Board

Nevada on Saturday reported a record daily increase of additional confirmed COVID-19 cases. But health officials later said the bulge largely resulted from laboratory data entry errors that delayed the posting of hundreds of cases from two previous days...The state Department of Health and Human Services reported an additional confirmed 1,099 cases, mostly from metro Las Vegas...The number of additional cases reported Saturday was more than double the previous record of 507 reported Thursday. Bur the Southern Nevada Health Agency said the reported daily increase included over 600 cases that should have been reported earlier in the week but were not...READ MORE

Gov. Steve Sisolak announced casinos could reopen June 4. Then the Nevada Gaming Control Board updated its health and safety policy, which outlines requirements aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19. Gaming companies quickly followed suit and unveiled which of their properties would be reopening along with some of the steps they’re taking to protect both workers and guests...But the process hasn’t appeased the powerful Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which represents roughly 60,000 employees who work in casinos-resort properties as guest room attendants, cooks, porters, baristas, bartenders and cashiers, among other roles...READ MORE

When retired Navy Chief Petty Officer Richard Gray and his wife, Sheila, were able to go to the Nellis Air Force Base pharmacy, they picked up their prescriptions with full coverage and no copayment...But now their only option is off base, and the 16 medications they take between them cost upward of $2,000 a month out of pocket at Walgreens...Under the base’s public health emergency called on April 3 and renewed May 4 in response to the coronavirus outbreak, only uniformed members and their dependents and essential civilian contract employees are allowed on base, including the pharmacy...The Nellis pharmacy was placed off limits for retirees on April 10, leaving thousands of local military widows and retirees, many of them living on fixed incomes, locked out of the no-cost medication to which they are entitled. Now they are subject to copays that can quickly add up to hundreds of dollars...READ MORE