Sisolak called the noncompliance stats “disappointing and unacceptable,” especially as the state had a week to get into the mask-wearing mode. “To those businesses operating in violation of the [mask] directive by not implementing safe social distancing and face covering protocols, you’re not only jeopardizing people’s health but you’re also jeopardizing your fellow businesses, your industry, and our overall economy.” Sisolak concluded by darkly warning that, given upward Covid-19 trends, “if these concerting trends on noncompliance continue, I will not hesitate to take swift and decisive actions [this] week …” Certainly if Nevadans are behaving like these nincompoops in Arizona, a crackdown would be in order. This is a public-health catastrophe, for Pete’s sake.
Sheldon Adelson‘s Las Vegas Review-Journal tried to blow some smoke up our ass about business and disease vectors but facts, being inconvenient things (per John Adams), keep getting in the way. When casinos reopened on June 4, there was already a slight upward trend in reported cases. Given the two-week incubation period of Coronavirus, if we flash forward to June 18, we find ourselves in the middle of a sharp upward slope that that continued to trend almost vertically through June 27. If Sisolak can be faulted for anything, it’s for not imposing his mask edict sooner: There were 749 new cases a day and a moving average of 480 on the day of his decree. Cases per day tumbled to 625 on the 26th and 384 the day after that, but those are still alarming numbers. (Also, contrary to Adelson’s
At least hospitalizations in Clark County were at a low ebb (seven on the 27th). Also, senior citizens—that demographic thought to be most at risk—comprised only 12 of the new cases on the 27th, compared to 34 among the 18-to-24 age group that thinks it’s immune and immortal, plus 32.5 more among 25-to-49-year-olds. Bottom line, this is a terrible time to be visiting Nevada. It has the highest transmission rate in the nation, according to rt.live, which employs data gleaned from the Covid Transmission Project. Every infected person will pass the disease on to 1.5 others, per the latest data. Given the grisliness of Coronavirus symptoms, that ought to be incentive enough to keep people home—where there’s plenty of gambling to be had, thanks to an industry that has spread far and wide from the Strip.
