Mask mandate to remain in place into 2022, Nevada official says
Southern Nevada and other areas of the state labeled at “high” risk of COVID-19 transmission will remain under a state mask mandate through the rest of the year and into early 2022, a state official said Thursday.
“We will continue to have indoor masking, regardless of vaccination status, through the holiday season and into the start of the new year,” said DuAne Young, policy adviser to Gov. Steve Sisolak. “Right now we’ve made a decision that with this new variant (omicron), with the winter surge, with what we know can happen, we just wanted to put it out there that we will continue masking through the holidays.”
The mask guidelines have long been tied to guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To lift the mask mandate, a county must record two consecutive weeks with a test positivity rate under 8.0 percent and a case rate of less than 50 per 100,000 people. Clark County has mostly stayed in the “high” transmission tier, but dropped briefly into the CDC’s “substantial” risk tier earlier this week before returning to “high” risk on Thursday.
Young added that state officials would continue evaluating the mask mandate and other mitigation measures in the state, though he didn’t say whether Sisolak would consider decoupling the mask mandate from CDC metrics.