Ricketts allows elective surgeries to start again, ends daily COVID data updates

LINCOLN, Neb (FOX 42 KPTM) — LINCOLN, Neb. — Gov. Pete Ricketts is ending a health measure that suspended some elective surgeries.

On Thursday, Governor Pete Ricketts announced that the State will rescind its Directed Health Measure (DHM) that had temporarily suspended inpatient Class D and Class E elective surgeries for all Acute Care, Critical Care, and Children’s Hospitals in Nebraska.

The DHM will be rescinded at 11:59 PM on October 21, 2021. This will allow Class D and Class E elective surgeries to resume as of October 22, 2021.

Gov. Ricketts also announced that coronavirus hospitalizations in Nebraska have fallen below 10% of statewide hospital bed capacity (7-day rolling average). In keeping with previously announced policy, updates to the Nebraska Hospital Capacity Dashboard—hosted at dhhs.ne.gov—will return to a weekly schedule as long as COVID-19 hospitalizations remain below the 10% capacity threshold.

Daily COVID-19 data will be reported for today (Thursday, October 21st). Then, the next update to the dashboard will occur on Wednesday, October 27th. The Nebraska Hospital Capacity Dashboard will subsequently be updated once per week on Wednesdays and will no longer include demographic data and county-specific statistics.