LINCOLN- Gov. Pete Ricketts announced this week that Nebraska's statewide COVID-19 dashboard will be disappearing again.

Ricketts said the seven-day average of COVID-19 patients has dropped below 10% of total hospitalizations in the state, the threshold he set for reinstating the daily dashboard. Therefore, the state will return to providing only weekly COVID-19 statistics, and local health districts will no longer be allowed to report county-specific statistics for counties with fewer than 20,000 people.

Also because of the drop in patients, Ricketts announced he was rescinding a directed health measure that suspended many elective surgeries at the state's hospitals.

It's unclear how many hospitals will resume doing elective surgeries right away.

Bryan Health suspended any elective surgeries that required an overnight stay before Ricketts issued his DHM in late August. Officials there could not be reached for comment.

A spokesman for Nebraska Medicine in Omaha said it would not be reinstating the suspended elective surgeries at this time.

As of October 21st, COVID-19 patients were occupying 8% of regular adult hospital beds statewide but 25% of intensive-care beds.

In many areas of the state, however, COVID-19 patients still make up more than 10% of patients. The hospitals in North Platte both have 16% of their beds occupied with COVID-19 patients, and the percentages are 15% in Columbus, 14% in Grand Island and 11% in Lincoln, according to the state dashboard.

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