Governor Issues Emergency Directive 30

Late last week, Governor Sisolak issued Emergency Directive 30, formally adopting the Road to Recovery: Moving to a New Normal plan as a supplement to the earlier phase-focused Nevada United: Roadmap to Recovery plan. Directive 30 provides that Nevada will remain at Phase 2 and that counties with elevated COVID-19 transmission risk may have restrictions beyond the Phase 2 mandates.

Directive 30 creates the COVID-19 Mitigation and Management Task Force which must meet at least weekly to provide a current county-level situation report and analysis. The Directive sets forth the assessment process for counties with an elevated COVID-19 risk and gives the Task Force the authority to adopt, modify or reject a county’s action plan to address its elevated status. The Task Force is also responsible for monitoring a county’s compliance with its approved action plan. The Directive provides that if counties or businesses within a county fail to comply with the action plan and/or fail to show improvement in the disease measurement criteria, the Task Force may enact additional mitigation and enforcement measures.

Directive 30 also addresses the Governor’s prior order regarding bars and restaurants, Directive 27. It makes the following changes:

• The limit upon seating parties over 6 is lifted as of 11:59 pm on August 20;
• The limits and closures placed upon bars and restaurants in Directive 27 will end as of 11:59 on August 20 and bars and restaurants will return to the standards set forth in Sections 25 and 26 of Directive 21.
• However, in counties with elevated COVID-19 risk, the New Normal Plan and the restriction determinations of the Mitigation Task Force shall control. As such, it is very possible that bars and restaurants in certain counties, such as Clark County, will remain under the type of restrictions set forth in Directive 27 until disease rates decrease and action plans are amended.

There are many questions about this new Directive especially because the Governor’s press release did not address the Directive’s provisions on bars and restaurants. We expect that more information will be available as the week progresses. The Task Force will meet on August 20 in a public meeting; the agenda indicates that it will review Directive 30 and may approve the action plans of counties with elevated disease transmission. Information about how to attend this meeting is available on the agenda.

As always, we will keep you posted as to further developments.

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