COVID-19 testing continues in East Las Vegas with next event – KLAS – 8 News Now

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) In Southern Nevada, 25% of COVID-19 cases are coming from the Hispanic community. Over the past month, there have been increased efforts to stop it from spreading, especially in certain areas of the Valley.

In just one East Las Vegas zip code, more than 400 positive cases were reported this week.

Testing is coming back to the area, as events resume tomorrow at Jerome Mack Middle School. Organizers say there is a need for more locations like this to combat the virus among Hispanics.

We have seen these pop-up sites for the past two weekends, with hundreds of people showing up.

The goal? To help this area hit hard by the virus.

The reality is the more you test, the more numbers will go up, said Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom.

East Las Vegas area code 89110 has nearly 2,000 positive COVID-19 tests.

The truth is, we dont have exact numbers, but the positives are unacceptable, Segerblom expressed. It is an underserved area.

Segerblom says we may be seeing more cases because of the amount of testing being done at East Las Vegas pop-up testing sites over the past few weekends.

We had crowds around the block before the doors opened. We ended up doing over twice what we anticipated.

Last Saturday, 900 tests were done. State experts say with more tests being conducted, more tracing can happen. Contact tracing has accounted for 16% of cases in Nevada.

The tests are to result data, and the data is to drive intervention and action that is positive, explained Caleb Cage, Nevada COVID-19 response director. And, that is a good thing.

Sites are planned for two more weekends. More pop-ups and a permanent site are in the works but finding locations isnt easy.

You kind of need a vacant building. Now that the fact the schools are not going to be open right away, I think we may be able to use those schools going forward, too, said Segerblom. We havent talked to the school district about that yet, but that may be one of our avenues.

Testing at Jerome Mack Middle School will be from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. No appointment is needed, and there is no cost to you.

However, you must get there early. Last week, people started lining up as early as 5 a.m .

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COVID-19 testing continues in East Las Vegas with next event - KLAS - 8 News Now

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