The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has changed in just the past month with a variant, vaccine and an increase in cases.

New Year’s Eve revelers who were at crowded places Thursday night should assume they were exposed to the coronavirus, a Nevada health official said. These places include the Las Vegas Strip.

Although the fireworks show was canceled on the Las Vegas Strip, thousands of people gathered in this tourist area to say goodbye to an unusual 2020 and welcome a 2021 that everyone hopes is better. However, there are those who consider that this way of welcoming the New Year was somewhat irresponsible due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 upended just about everything in 2020. KUNR’s Lucia Starbuck talks to Brian Labus, an epidemiologist with Nevada’s COVID-19 medical advisory team, to learn more about the past 10 months in Nevada and what is expected for the start of the new year.

Although it will be at least a couple of months before the general public gets the COVID-19 vaccine, efforts are being made in Nevada to make sure everyone is educated when it comes to getting the vaccine.

Las Vegas: Community advocates and health officials are working to engage with the state’s diverse communities and reach out in Spanish and other languages as Nevada lays plans for mass coronavirus vaccinations.

Community advocates and health officials are working to engage with Nevada's diverse communities and reach out in Spanish and other languages as the state lays plans for mass COVID-19 vaccinations.

Community advocates and health officials are working to engage with the state’s diverse communities and reach out in Spanish and other languages as Nevada lays plans for mass coronavirus vaccinations. Erika Marquez, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas public health professor and vice chair of the Nevada Minority Health & Equity Coalition, said merely translating information about the vaccine into other languages is not enough. “We had to engage these communities in the conversation, and that takes some time,” Marquez told the Las Vegas Sun. Nevada is a diverse state with a 29% Latino population that includes native Spanish speakers. Nevada also has a fast-growing group of Asian American and Pacific Islanders, of which 70% speak a language other than English at home, according to data shared by Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote. Marquez’s coalition has been working throughout the pandemic to share information encouraging physical distancing, hand hygiene and masks with diverse communities and is preparing vaccine education materials in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese and Thai.

Community advocates and health officials are working to engage with Nevada’s diverse communities and reach out in Spanish and other languages as the state lays plans for mass coronavirus vaccinations.

The iconic New Year’s Eve ball dropped at midnight in an eerily empty Times Square and was livestreamed into homes across the nation. The usually packed New York City block was mostly barren because tourists and locals were encouraged to celebrate safely at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Arizona’s Gov. Doug Ducey has rejected the state’s top education official’s call for Ducey to order public schools to use only online instruction for the next two weeks unless they have waivers from health officials.

Government and nonprofit health and community services organizations are expanding their COVID-19 educational campaigns about the newly released vaccines not just in English and Spanish, but soon, Thai and Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese.