Members of Douglas County's Citizens Emergency Response Team and a health official wait for the first customers at a March 16 coronavirus testing in Gardnerville.
Photo by Kurt Hildebrand.
An outbreak of the coronavirus closed Diamond Valley School in Woodfords for in-person instruction.
According to an order issued by the Alpine County Health Department, 60 percent of the school’s students and staff are in isolation or quarantine due to the contagion.
The school as ordered closed at the end of the day on Monday and will remain closed until Dec. 6, depending on the status of its staff.
The school reopened for in-person attendance on Oct. 12.
The school has an enrollment of around 80 K-8 students. Alpine County secondary students attend Douglas High School.
In an update on the virus, Alpine Health Officer Richard Johnson pointed out that the counties around Alpine are in the highest risk category.
“Remember Alpine County is not an island,” he said. “We live, work, shop, recreate, vacation and visit relatives in many of these places.”
In Douglas County, state figures show that the virus has slowed down a bit to six new cases a day from the nine new cases reported last week by Carson City Health and Human Services.
The availability of the vaccine to children between 5-12 years old has resulted in an increase percentage of Douglas residents who’ve started the two-shot process.
According to state figures, 58.76 percent of the county’s population over the age of 5 have received one shot.
A total of 67 deaths have been attributed to the virus. Only one hospitalization has been reported from the county.
The county has a 14-day test positivity rate of 15.3 percent or nearly twice the recommended level and a case rate of 531 per 100,000 residents. Douglas only has around 50,000 residents so the actual rate is about half that.
As of Nov. 18, Douglas County has had 4,907 cases of the virus, with 1,139 active cases, according to Carson City Health and Human Services.
According to the Nevada Health Response, Douglas County remains at a high risk of transmission.
A vaccination clinic is 3-5:30 Dec. 1 at the Douglas County Community & Senior Center 1329 Waterloo Lane in Gardnerville.
It has been a year since the Thanksgiving 2020 virus surge saw reported active cases go from 39 on Nov. 23 to 303 on Nov. 24 and had increased to 467 by the end of the month.
While base numbers are running around twice the active case load, there hasn’t been a similar rate of spread since.
