Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman wants her city open for business again, and she seems put forth some novel arguments in defense of that. On Wednesday she gave an extremely optimistic interview to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, claiming alternately that the death toll from COVID-19—now the leading cause of death in the U.S.—was too minor to merit closing businesses, and that there’s no way to know how bad the disease is anyway, so why not open up. She told Cooper that it doesn’t matter what Chinese researchers say about how the virus spreads because “This isn’t China. This is Las Vegas, Nevada.”
Goodman joins a number of politicians who have ignored the advice of public health experts. Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt announced the state would reopen businesses on Friday, joining governors Brian Kemp of Georgia, Bill Lee of Tennessee, and Henry McMaster of South Carolina, who are lifting stay-at-home orders even as coronavirus deaths in the U.S. head towards 50,000.
The Las Vegas mayor is eager for people to work again. Nevada governor Steve Sisolak ordered businesses closed in late March, and in the first week after, 93,000 people filed for unemployment, overwhelming the state office. Another 71,400 applied the following week. Speaking to MSNBC’s Katy Tur on Tuesday, Goodman proposed a bizarre solution: “Assume everybody is a carrier. And then you start from an even slate. And tell the people what to do. And let the businesses open and competition will destroy that business if, in fact, they become evident that they have disease, they’re closed down. It’s that simple.”
In her appearance on CNN, Cooper pushed for specifics about re-opening Las Vegas businesses, which Goodman seemed hesitant to give. “So you want hotel rooms, casinos, the theaters open?” Cooper asked. “I mean you want Vegas back in business, no?”
“I want our restaurants open, I want our small businesses open, I want people back in employment,” Goodman replied. “We have so many families that can’t even afford to get the groceries for their family because they’ve been out of work for six weeks.”
Cooper again asked, “But casinos, you want them open? Because obviously, visitors are not going to come without casinos and shows and things.”
“Well, no, they’ll come because they love—We’ve got major league sports here. I’d love everything open because I think we’ve had viruses for years that have been here.”
At one point, Goodman defends her position by pointing out that Las Vegas as a city survived polio and Ebola. When Cooper pointed out there was no evidence that any casino workers were ever infected with polio while working, Goodman declared, “Well, we don’t know that. A neighbor of mine died from West Nile, because the swimming pool next door was filled with mosquitoes and the people who abandoned the house left the pool full. So this is part of life.”
Goodman said multiple times in the interview that the current death toll in Las Vegas of 150 wasn’t worth preventing the rest of the city from working. When Cooper suggested that the reason Las Vegas had seen so few deaths was because social distancing was working, Goodman said it was impossible for him to know that unless they ended social distancing to see if deaths increased. She then said that she was willing to offer up the city as a “test case” to see if that happened or not. But also told Cooper that fighting the outbreak is “not my job, it’s the hospitals and health system’s job. And it’s people’s responsibility to know when they are sick.”
Goodman seems unaware that there’s no way for people to test themselves for coronavirus. Most hourly workers, especially those in restaurants and the hospitality industry which she brought up repeatedly, don’t have the luxury of missing work without paid sick leave or some kind of government support. But Goodman wants those people to risk their lives regardless.
