Vegas Mayor Wants City To Be "Control Group" For Coronavirus Reopening

In a heated interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said she wanted its citizens to be the guinea pigs for the rest of the country by fully reopening the local economy.

Goodman has been one of the more outspoken public figures on this side of the economic issues surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Last week, the former Democrat turned Independent called Gov. Steve Sisolak’s shutdown of ‘nonessential businesses’ ‘total insanity.’

The 81-year-old went on Cooper’s show to discuss why she believes reopening the local economy, including casinos, is the right thing to do. She would like to follow the lead of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who recently announced the reopening of his state’s economy.

“Let us get started and go back to work,” said Goodman. “We have all these people out of work that can’t even feed their families… We have close to 900,000 families out of work because this wonderful city is shutdown.”

There is plenty of data to make that argument as the interview took place just a day before another 4.4 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits. Thursday’s numbers brought the five-week total since the outbreak to more than $26 million.

As of Thursday morning, there are 3,218 confirmed cases in Clark County and 150 deaths from COVID-19.

Her logic, however, took a turn as the interview went on as Goodman tried to compare the spread of coronavirus to previous pandemics.

“None of those were as infectious,” replied Cooper. “You didn’t have people with ebola on a casino floor.”

“Well, we don’t know that,” said Goodman. “A neighbor of mine died from west nile [virus] because the swimming pool at the next property was full of mosquitos and the people who abandoned the property left the pool full. This is part of life. It’s the challenges.”

At this point, the logic begins to shift and just minutes later, she explains that she offered up the city’s population to take part in a hypothetical experiment in reopening economies.

“How do you know until we have a control group?” when asked by Cooper if the city’s 150 death toll was low because of social distancing measures. “We offered to be a control group. Anyone who knows anything about statistics knows that… I did offer. It was turned down. I offered to be a control group and I was told by our statistician that you can’t do that.”

Her interview wasn’t well-received by many prominent poker pros.

Mayor Carolyn Goodman is embarrassing herself on national TV.

Remarkable.

Beyond remarkable.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing and hearing from her.

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) April 22, 2020

I showed this clip to my 12-year-old who responded “that is literally the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” and I’m especially proud he clearly understands the term ‘literally.’ https://t.co/ilX2fbv4j3

— Danielle Andersen (@dmoongirl) April 22, 2020

Las Vegas Mayor Goodman is for sure a disaster ….

But who the fuck did she beat in that election????

— Melissa Burr (@burrrrrberry) April 23, 2020

Gov. Sisolak has yet to announce a date for a relaxing of the current restrictions on the economy and the reopening of casinos.

The website for Caesars Entertainment, however, has begun to allow people to book stays at its properties as early as May 15.

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