OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - Nebraska may soon relax its social distancing restrictions again because the number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus has continued to decline.
Gov. Pete Ricketts has said he will relax those restrictions if there are consistently less than 15% of the state's hospital beds occupied by virus patients. Currently, 14% of Nebraska's staffed hospital beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients, and that number has remained below 15% for six days in a row.
The state said the number of people being treated in hospitals declined again Tuesday to 566 from the previous day's 582. That total remains well below the record of 987 set on Nov. 20 but it remains high compared to Oct. 1 when 227 people were hospitalized.
Nebraska reported 1,221 new virus cases and 10 deaths Tuesday to give the state 158,324 cases and 1,521 deaths since the pandemic began.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Nebraska decreased over the past two weeks, going from 1,817.14 new cases per day on Dec. 8 to 1,108.43 new cases per day on Tuesday.