Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman Says City’s Desert Heat Will “Deter” Virus, Allow City’s Reopening

Tom Tapp
·2 min read

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Just two days after a wild interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper in which she argued that, despite the pandemic, her city needed to reopen to avoid catastrophic job losses, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman sought to clarify her logic.

In her interview Wednesday with Cooper, Goodman argued that with the shutdown of the city, many citizens “can’t even afford to get the groceries for their family because they have been out of work for six weeks.”

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Mayor Goodman also seemed to suggest that the city had survived previous outbreaks without the need for closures.

“I’d love everything open because we’ve had viruses for years that have been here,” she said.

When Cooper suggested that reopened casinos would be “like a virus Petri dish,” Goodman replied, “It sounds like you are being alarmist.”

Friday, after much hue and cry, the Las Vegas Mayor posted a lengthy statement on Twitter.

After saying that the city must “examine all available data…and determine the safest path to reopening,” Mayor Goodman seemed to offer Las Vegas as a test lab.

“Although, it has not been clearly determined as to the effect that extreme warmth will have on the virus,” she said, “it is assumed that it will deter its ferocity. We certainly are looking forward to having our desert heat provide the required substantiation. Our hot summer coupled with our unique economy compel us to be at the forefront of America’s ‘reopening.'”

Mayor Goodman’s statement comes a day after a Homeland Security official offered data at a White House briefing suggesting COVID-19 does not survive long in high humidity and sunlight.

A National Academies of Sciences panel, however, warned the White House in April that summer temperatures were unlikely to significantly slow the spread of the virus.

Mayor Goodman, on the other hand, seemed tundeterred, proposing “we, judiciously, reopen America’s city…for the wellbeing of us all.”

Watch Mayor Goodman’s interview with CNN below.

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