SEASON 4: EPISODE 28| Airdate: 1/21/2022
The surge in coronavirus cases has left industries across Southern Nevada short-staffed.
The spike in cases has been blamed on the omicron variant that is more transmissible than past variants of the novel coronavirus. More than 3,000 cases per day have been reported in Nevada. The state’s test positivity rate nearing 40 percent, compared with November when it was at 5.8 percent.
Tabitha Mueller, reporter for the Nevada Independent, told Nevada Week that the Omicron variant spreads more rapidly than any other variant during the pandemic, but she said that health officials are telling her that it appears to be less severe than other strains.
“It is kind of burning through the population right now,” Mueller said, “We’re not at the end. We’re sort of in this weird middle part and cases are at very, very high. We are seeing a bit of plateauing. It could go either way.”
Mueller said that health officials from the federal level down to the local levels are reminding people to continue to take precautions against the virus like wearing masks in crowded, indoor spaces and social distancing as much as possible, “but it is likely that every single person is going to be getting this Omicron variant,”
She said there is no way to predict exactly what is going to happen with this coronavirus but most health experts expect the case numbers to fall towards the end of January until the next variant comes. Mueller said in the same way that we deal with the flu every year, we’re likely going to be dealing with COVID.
Staff shortages forced the Clark County School District to take a two-day pause in January and some hospitals have scrambled to get enough healthcare workers as hospitalization rates increase.
Mason Van Houweling, CEO of University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, said the area is at “all-time highs” for hospitalizations and test positivity. He said UMC is well over 100 percent of licensed beds and at 95 percent of staffed beds.
“We are definitely at the peak of this tidal wave here in Las Vegas,” he said.
Dr. Jesus Jara, superintendent of the Clark County School District, said that the spike in cases has just amplified the staffing shortages the district has already been dealing with this year.
“What we were able to see was that the spread in our campuses, and our schools, because of the mitigation strategies was limited, but we can’t control the outside,” he said, “When we went into this pause it was something that was so needed because our folks needed to catch up.”
He said nurses at the school district were working seven days a week.
Jara noted that the school district already had three days off – the weekend plus another day because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. They added two more days, which will have to be made up later in the school year.
He said the pause gave the school district a chance to ‘reset’ and ‘reboot’ and come back ready to instruct kids in schools. Jara said before the pause everybody was tired and “beat up.”
“Everybody is tired. The superintendent is tired,” he said, “But we have to continue to provide a service to our kids and our schools.”
Jeff Murawsky, HCA Healthcare Far West Division Chief Medical Officer, agreed with the superintendent that everyone in his industry is also tired.
“It’s been two and a half years of a really difficult run with multiple spikes and not knowing the future, but every healthcare worker is a hero,” he said, “I think we need to remind everyone that our first-line responders, our educators, our nurses, our folks that keep the hospital clean, serve food, they’re all heroes for coming to work every day and getting our community through this.”
