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As far as COVID-19 is concerned, what happens in Las Vegas doesn’t stay in Las Vegas.
Casinos in Las Vegas reopened on June 4 and are likely a hotbed for the spread of the new coronavirus, public fitness experts said. But if tourists return home and then test positive for COVID-19, the limitations of finding contact amid a pandemic make it unlikely that such an epidemic will be identified.
The search for contact, one of the pillars of the cessation of the pandemic, is a laborious procedure in which a fitness officer detects anyone who has been in contact with an inflamed user and takes steps to prevent him from spreading the disease. But there is no national formula in position for contact seeking, said Joshua Michaud, an epidemiologist and associate director of global fitness policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. It is decentralized and managed through local fitness agencies that would possibly not talk to other people, especially given their workload. Therefore, if a casino had a “cluster epidemic” or a “widespread event” among visitors, the search for touches is unlikely to detect it, Michaud said.
“The way it’s being implemented right now, touch tracers aren’t looking for groups that can also identify epidemics similar to moving to a casino or other fast locations,” Michaud said. “You’re not actively looking for it, so you may miss this event. Contact tracking isn’t set up to answer those questions, so you’ll be in the dark.”
New research into the knowledge of smartphones, done at ProPublica’s request, shows how interconnected the country is with Las Vegas visitors, adding to considerations about the limits of the search for interstate contacts. X-Mode and Tectonix analyzed to and from Las Vegas for 4 days from Friday to Monday through mid-July. According to privacy laws, X-Mode collects the knowledge of smartphone users, basically those who use fitness and weather apps that track their location. Data accounts for approximately 5% of smartphone users in the United States. Tectonix analyzed the knowledge and saw it on a map.
During the four-day period, approximately 26,000 aircraft were known on the Las Vegas Strip. Some of those same smartphones also gave the impression in every state of the continent, except Maine, the same 4 days. Approximately 3,700 aircraft were sighted in Southern California in the same 4 days; approximately 2700 in Arizona, 740 in Phoenix; about 1,000 in Texas; more than 800 in Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago and Cleveland; and more than a hundred in the New York area.
Cell phone research highlights an explanation of why the virus continues to spread, said Oscar Alleyne, an epidemiologist and program director of the National Association of City and County Health Officials. “People have been very cellular and therefore it makes sense that we see that the outbreak continues.”
As a general rule, public fitness agencies communicate with each other at the state level, said Kimberly Hertin, disease surveillance manager at the Southern Nevada Health District’s Office of Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance, which includes Las Vegas in its territory. During the pandemic, local agencies contacted each other directly, he said, but knowledge is not being tracked to show how this happens to visitors to Las Vegas resorts.
COVID-19 did it to download a full image in real time, he said. In the five weeks following the reopening of Las Vegas, the number of daily instances of COVID-19 increased tenfold. Clark County now has more than 50,000 instances. The number of new cases consistent with the day has since decreased, however, the count in Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, remains high enough for the Harvard Global Health Institute to present house prescriptions. (There are no such commands).
Hertin said the virus presented an overwhelming challenge in locating contacts. Its incubation period can be up to two weeks, so during the time it is discovered at a tourist’s home in Las Vegas, the user will probably be at the house. It is “almost impossible” to identify the source of the cases, Hertin said.
Contact search efforts are aimed at the user with a proven case not to be transmitted to others, without identifying the source of that user’s infection, Hertin said. “Once the point of network spread with this virus has been reached, it is difficult to reach this conclusion of groups or epidemics,” he said.
Beyond that, with numbers as high as they are, local fitness can slightly track the instances of other people living in your jurisdiction. “Our systems are in a position to do this when diseases are not widespread,” such as E. Coli or salmonella due to lettuce or onions, Alleyne said. But COVID-19 affects thousands of other people, he said. “Magnify and overwhelm the system”.
Public fitness experts say there are several keys to engaging COVID-19: social distance and disguising with others, doing abundant and timely tests to see who has the virus, tracking contracts to inspire those who have been in contact with other inflamed people. people to isolate themselves and isolate themselves from other inflamed people. Reducing unnecessary outputs is also helping to quell the virus.
In some cases, casinos say they are doing their part to identify conditions under which their consumers may have swelled during their stay. MGM Resorts International, which owns Bellagio, Aria, Mandalay Bay and other homes, says in its security plan that consumers deserve to email the company if they test positive.
MGM provided ProPublica with a report on its security efforts. But the company didn’t say how many times it won emails. MGM also declined to say how many times it had informed the Southern Nevada Health District of an imaginable transmission of COVID-19 at one of its properties.
MGM’s policy of sending emails to visitors to the company and then referring them to the fitness district is “many steps in a chain where you can lose a connection,” Michaud said. “If someone gets tested when they get home and doesn’t send them an email, it’s information you’ll never get.”
Hertin said the Southern Nevada Health District had won casino reports on cases. But the knowledge to have doesn’t easily show what complex or how many cases, he said. It would probably be imaginable to say it retrospectively after the virus has disappeared, he said.
The number of visitors to Las Vegas has increased since it reopened. Many travelers come from neighboring states and more than a million passengers passed through the airport in June, about a quarter less than in the same month of 2019. Air shipping across the country fell by more than 80% in June compared to last year.
Cell phone knowledge analysis shows how Las Vegas could simply fuel the pandemic, Alleyne said. “In this rush to reopen and reposition economic activities, all we have done is spread and magnify the scope of this disease.”
ProPublica met with six public fitness experts who described the casinos as a high-risk environment for COVID-19. They are inside, crowded and full of people reluctant to risk. It is almost certain, according to experts, that casinos are a food court for COVID-19.
“There is a great opportunity to spread the virus, especially for others who are sick or don’t know they are sick,” said Crystal Watson, lead researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety. Up to 40% of other people inflamed with COVID-19 have no symptoms. “We’ve noticed large outbreaks caused by such situations.”
Las Vegas staff is also involved in the spread of the virus. Ralph McIver calls Binion’s Café kitchen, where he works, a “crucible” of employees. Coffee is at Binion’s Gambling Hall on Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas. During his shifts, McIver works “almost shoulder to shoulder” with two colleagues from the line of cooks, roasting ham and eggs, hangover burgers and Cowboy Cheesesteak sandwiches. “It’s hard to stay socially away,” he said.
McIver is diabetic, putting him in a major threat of severe COVID-19 cases. He also lives near his elderly mother, who is also the main threat. Binion required workers to undergo COVID-19 testing before returning to work, making McIver feel uncomfortable. He would feel better if he and his colleagues had initial and follow-up tests, he said. The longer the pandemic lasts, the more worried you feel. “My fear has only worsened.”
Binion officials responded to requests for comment.
Nevada regulators have established minimum criteria for coVID-19 protections, but have allowed casinos many of their own protective measures, much to the dismay of many workers. This is no surprise, as gaming corporations have a major influence on Nevada’s policy makers.
Las Vegas can almost be called a corporate city and its economy depends on tourism, even the pandemic. In a dissatisfied and debatable interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about the closure, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman called for reopening despite the virus and gave the impression of offering the city as a kind of “control group” in an experiment. “How do you know that until we have a control group?” She asked. “We proposed to be a control group.”
As for regulation in Nevada, Michael Green, a historian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, put it this way: “The casino industry is the tail that moves the dog. Maybe it’s just the dog, too.
Casinos have operated differently since the start of COVID-19. Capacity is limited. Workers are screened every day for symptoms. Slot machines and seats at game tables are separated. Plexiglass barriers separate distributors and players, and in all properties there are hand washing and disinfection stations.
But in other ways, regulators have allowed casinos to take the same reaction to coronavirus as it has happened from one state to another. At first, visitors were not required to wear a mask, even indoors, which is one of the main protections through public fitness experts. After COVID-19 instances began to increase, Governor Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, ordered a mask for everyone in public spaces, especially inside. He also ordered bar closures in some counties, adding Clark.
Plans to reopen businesses vary significantly. Wynn Resorts required each and every worker to be evaluated, for example, but not MGM. And the criteria that have been established have been implemented unevenly, the staff told ProPublica. They said that even now, visitors can do without the mask by saying they smoke or drink.
The increased security effort was made by the staff. Officials at Culinary Union, the largest union representing hotel staff in Las Vegas, said that in the first few weeks after the reopening, they documented dozens of cases in which visitors did not wear a mask or stay at bay, or casinos lacked hand sanitizer or protector. Personal device. The union filed a complaint last June against several properties, accusing them of failing to protect staff. The challenge is now solved, with the union and companies working together to pass the law signed by the governor that establishes shields for staff, adding criteria for cleanliness, social estrangement and handwashing; Notification within 24 hours if you have been exposed to the virus; inspections to ensure compliance.
Workers also questioned the casino’s efforts to locate contacts. Jessica Bremer’s delight was part of the now-determined trial of the culinary union. In mid-June, Bremer said he listened to his colleagues, not his employer, to say that one of his colleagues at Guy Fieri’s Vegas Kitchen-Bar tested positive for COVID-19. Bremer, a specialist cook, said her employer, The LINQ, which is owned by Harrah’s, a member of casino giant Caesars Entertainment, did not deal with the stage the way she said she and other workers.
Bremer showed up on his turn after hearing that his colleague had tested positive. But she told her superiors that she didn’t feel comfortable working. Bremer, 35, suffers from multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that makes her more vulnerable to a severe case of COVID-19. According to the trial, one manager told him that he “deserves to take care of him” and another told him that he deserved to continue working. The company’s security team was in the process of figuring out which workers might be in danger due to contact with the inflamed worker, he said. That didn’t sit well with Bremer. “Security guards don’t have a medical degree,” Bremer said. “If someone has to make a judgment about what is and what is not, they deserve to be a fitness professional or someone with COVID training.”
Even after discovering that Bremer had recently painted with the inflamed employee, the company told her and other colleagues to paint that day, he said. The painters returned and refused to go to paint the next day, they closed the dining room for 10 days, he said. Employees were paid at closing, he said.
Employees at other casinos made similar accusations in the lawsuit. ProPublica asked Caesars officials about Bremer’s account of the restaurant’s closure. They refused to communicate what she said, but provided a saying that their properties “implemented an extensive contact search program that leveraged our complicated surveillance, security and human resources tools.” Institutions have also put in place “extensive” security measures, according to the press release, and painters who are at maximum threat or do not need to repaint can postpone their return.
A spokesman for the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services said 337 non-Nevada citizens tested positive for COVID-19 in the state in June and at most in July. The state firm was able to identify 10 out-of-state citizens suspected of being contagious on its scale in Nevada who tested positive for COVID-19 upon returning home. Public fitness experts said the numbers were far from quantifying the problem. State figures are in fact a “significant under-recount,” said Alleyne, an epidemiologist for the Association of County and City Health Officials.
The reopening of Las Vegas is “playing with lives,” said Michelle Follette Turk, UNLV’s occupational fitness historian. The government bet on allowing casino owners to create their own fitness and protection plans and apply masks until the amount of COVID-19 has increased, he said. “Employers are playing with workers’ lives because they want to make a profit,” Turk added. “But workers are playing with their lives: they want a paycheck.”
Pinar Keskinocak, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology who specializes in infectious disease models, compared cases of COVID-19 leaving Las Vegas for a wildfire. Imagine if an organization of trees was lit and some of the flames jumped into the area, where they were lighting other trees, he said. “This is the kind of spread that can occur across the country because of other people’s meetings in Las Vegas,” he said.
The threat is far greater than the threat posed by the reopening of schools, Keskinocak said. In schools, the same organization of academics and ters interacts with others on a daily basis and is very likely to live in the same geographic area. Thus, any transmission of the infection will be contained in the organization and perhaps in their families. But in a casino, other people from all over the country meet and meet one day and both in new organizations. Then they come back all over the country. In this way, he said, Las Vegas “could particularly boost the spread of the disease.”
Differences in the way public policymakers magnify the problem, Keskinocak said. A county or state would possibly have strict interventions, such as sheltering on the spot or wearing a mask, but a nearby domain might not be, he said. “It is vital to have a concerted effort at the national level,” Keskinocak said. “If you do these interventions randomly and without coordination, then we are making progress and we are going back again.”
Michaud, an epidemiologist at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said some countries were going to suppress the virus early and have now almost returned to the general. But that’s not what happened in America. So now, lawmakers are looking to strike a balance between preventing the spread of the virus and resuming overall activity. And in many places, such as Las Vegas, lawmakers have aligned the property with the opening up of the economy. “I don’t expect a primary blockade in the near future,” he said. “This means that there will probably be a continuous transmission. It’s horrible, but it’s true.”
Loyal vegas say they’ll keep coming.
Michele Heil and her husband travel 3 seconds a year to Las Vegas, where they are regulars at El Cortez Hotel and Casino on Fremont Street. The couple live in central Illinois, where Heil said she was a social worker in the administration of fitness care. Their June was planned before the pandemic erupted and they had no regard for his departure.
Things went well. He said he was more concerned about COVID-19 on the plane than at casinos. They took their temperature when they entered each property, other people remained socially remote and cleaning crews were active. “Before we left, we had already planned our next trip,” Heil said. “We’ll be back in September.”