Washoe County cutting 250 limit on gatherings back to 50
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Beginning next week, public gatherings in Washoe County will be subject to the same 50-person limitation that was in effect before Gov. Steve Sisolak raised the statewide cap to 250 on Oct. 1 as part of a relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions.
A state task force approved the change Thursday at the request of Washoe County and the cities of Reno and Sparks in response to a dramatic spike in the spread of the coronavirus there over the last two weeks.
The return to the previous cap is part of a broader action plan the county submitted to the Nevada COVID-19 Mitigation and Management Task Force. It applies only to Washoe County, although all counties remain free to implement limits more stringent than the governor's statewide directive.
“We think that a reduction in the gathering size is an important step to take at this point with the level of disease transmission we have,” Washoe County Health District Officer Kevin Dick told the panel on Thursday.
The 50-person limit — or 50% of the fire code capacity, whichever is less — applies to all public gatherings indoors or outdoors in Washoe County effective next Thursday at 11:59 p.m. The county's plan said it wanted to wait until then to implement it partly “in consideration of currently planned activities” related to Tuesday's election.
The cap applies to churches but not businesses that have been allowed to reopen at 50% of capacity since widespread closures were ordered in March.
The county will continue to review requests for larger outside events with fixed seating on a case by case basis. There will be no change in the directive Sisolak issued effective Oct. 1 limiting private gatherings to 10 or fewer indoors and 25 or fewer outdoors statewide.
The task force agreed with the county’s...