More than 500 visitors to Nevada have tested positive for COVID-19 since June: officials
More than 500 people who have visited Nevada since casinos reopened in June have tested positive for coronavirus, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Between June 1 and Aug. 15, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services reported 530 visitors who had tested positive for COVID-19.
The majority of cases were administered to visitors while they were in Nevada; however, the data identified 11 people who tested positive shortly after they returned home.
Health officials in Nevada were only notified about the visitor cases if and when their home states — Arizona, California and Ohio — reported it.
Several resorts in Las Vegas closed in mid-March as cases began rising in the U.S., a massive hit to the city dominated by tourism. Nevada had the highest unemployment rate of any state in the country in April, with 28.2 percent of workers without a job — nearly double the national average of 14.7 percent, according to figures released by the Department of Labor.
The city’s mayor Carolyn Goodman continually pushed for nonessential businesses to be reopened, saying the sweeping closures have become “total insanity.” She faced a recall effort after she offered to reopen the city as a “control group.”
The Las Vegas Strip reopened on June 4 and Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) issued a mask mandate in public spaces that went into effect on June 25.
However, enforcement of policies aimed at stopping the spread of coronavirus have been difficult to enforce.
Nevada’s Culinary Union sued several Las Vegas casino operators in June, saying they have failed to keep casino workers safe and have not properly required customers to wear masks even though they required them for workers, indicating they “recognized the critical importance of mask-wearing.”
A Nevada man was arrested for trespassing after refusing to leave a Stateline, Nev., casino or put on a mask.
Earlier this month, the city of Las Vegas fined the Ahern Hotel for hosting a religious campaign event for President Trump that broke Nevada’s restrictions on large gatherings.