Elko County will not yet be allowed to open its bars under a new mitigation action plan approved by the state’s COVID-19 Mitigation and Management Task Force on Thursday. 

The state’s COVID-19 response director, Caleb Cage, said it didn’t make sense to allow the Elko County to reopen alcohol-serving establishments when the county continues to meet all three of the state’s risk factors for elevated spread of COVID-19.

The risk factors are a low number of tests per day, a high case rate and a high test positivity rate. 

The task force previously denied similar requests from Clark and Washoe counties on similar grounds. 

As of Wednesday, Elko had the equivalent of 443.8 cases per 100,000 residents in the past 30 days, a case rate second only to Clark County in Nevada. 

The county’s test positivity rate stands at 16.8 percent, the highest in the state.