Churchill County doesn’t meet state’s criteria for shutting down bars

Thanks to an ongoing community-based testing effort and a relatively low COVID case numbers, Churchill County has not met any of the state-mandated criteria for closing bars and distilleries.

“This good news is a result of our citizens heeding the directives and watching out for their neighbors and friends by social distancing,” said Jim Barbee, Churchill County manager.

Counties that meet two of the three criteria defined by the state of Nevada must close bars, pubs, taverns, distilleries, breweries and wineries at 11:59 p.m. tonight, July 10. Those three criteria are: Average number of tests per day less than 150; case rate higher than 100 over the last 14 days and; Test positivity rate of more than 7 percent.

As of Friday, Nevada’s COVID-19 Elevated Disease Transmission Tracker shows Churchill as having an average number of tests per day of 175.6, a case rate of 61.8 and test positivity rate of 2 percent.

“Thank you to everyone who is doing their part to keep our numbers down below these criteria thresholds so that these businesses may remain open here in Churchill County,” Barbee said. “While we recognize that more people in our community are being diagnosed, that is to be expected with higher test rates and as the virus moves through our population. We continue to strongly urge vulnerable populations to take extra precautions to protect their health.”