Humans have no herd immunity to Covid-19, no effective treatment and no vaccine, but Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman wants the city’s once-teeming casinos reopened for business.
The non-essential business shutdowns are “total insanity,” Goodman said Tuesday on MSNBC.
During an interview with MSNBC’s Katie Tur, Goodman talked about asymptomatic people carrying the coronavirus.
“What I assume is that everybody is a carrier, that 100 percent of our population is asymptomatic but a carrier,” she told MSNBC. “So how do we move forward? What do we do to keep our people working? Keep parents being able to put food on the table, pay rent and keep a roof over their heads?”
Tur asked Goodman how the city will handle social distancing when “Vegas runs on crowds.”
“They run on crowds in small spaces, interacting with each other, using slot machines, touching the same things, breathing the same filtered air through the casino. A lot of smokers in Vegas make people highly susceptible to this disease,” Tur said. “How do you keep people safe? Do you think it’s possible?”
The mayor said that Vegas has survived other viruses and still managed to grow exponentially.
“Consider the fact we have grown so exponentially here over the last 40 years, it’s been incredible,” the mayor said. “And we’ve survived the West Nile, SARS, Bird Flu, Ecoli, Swine Flu, the Zika virus.”
“Those weren’t as contagious and they didn’t spread as this disease has already done,” Tur pointed out.
Goodman responded, “We have lived through all these other viruses, highly contagious diseases, and yet we have managed to continue to have wonderful conventions come up here.”
Nevada has reported 4,208 Covid-19 cases and 189 deaths as of this writing.
Tur asked Goodman whether social distancing is the reason why Covid-19 hasn’t killed more people in Nevada. “That’s a modern-day survival of the fittest,” Tur said.
The COVID-19-driven workforce reduction hit everywhere in Las Vegas, from cocktail servers and bellmen at Bellagio and housekeeping staff at New York-New York to front desk workers at The Mirage, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Nevada casinos hired 409,444 workers in 2018, according to Statista.
Mayor Goodman was also interviewed by CNN‘s Anderson Cooper, who asked her how she planned on maintaining social distancing if casinos were open. The mayor responded with a hands-off approach: “That’s up to them to figure out. I don’t run a casino.”
Twitter was not kind to Goodman after the Anderson Cooper interview.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 70: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin goes solo to discuss the COVID-19 crisis. He talks about the failed leadership of Trump, Andrew Cuomo, CDC Director Robert Redfield, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and New York Mayor de Blasio.
Las Vegas poker player Daniel Negreanu thought the interview went badly. “I couldn’t imagine a public official coming off worse in an interview. There should be a mercy rule,” Negreanu tweeted.
Late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel called for Goodman’s resignation. Clark County Commissioner Justin Jones tweeted, “Carolyn Goodman is an embarrassment for our city. Her comments are insulting to both the citizens and the businesses in Southern Nevada. To be clear, @mayoroflasvegas is not my mayor. #notmymayor”
But Mayor Goodman had her supporters too.
CT @teter_casey tweeted, “I got your back Mayor! Vegas’s small & big businesses alike deserve a fighting chance to weather this storm! If #SACKSISOLAK is too scared to fight, he can stay behind his “panel of experts” and collect his paychecks in his mansion until 2022 when we can get rid of him for good!”
