San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Desperate LasVegas betting on rapid tests
Imagine you have tickets for a show tonight featuring Lionel Richie at the Encore Theater in theWynn Las Vegas Resort.
COVID-19 isn’t over, but that won’t stop you from seeing the pop star live, with hundreds of other concert goers.
Most important, imagine you can do so safely.
That’sWynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox’s vision. He wants to open an in-house COVID-19 testing lab by Thanksgiving. He said concert goers could take a rapid coronavirus test the afternoon of the concert and receive the results on a mobile phone app before the performance starts.
The plan, however, would need the blessing of Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak. Most gatherings in the state are currently limited to 250 people.
Las Vegas hotel owners believe taking aggressive action can save the area’s tourism industry and tens of thousands of jobs. If it works, I would not be surprised to see hotels, theaters and meeting venues in other cities follow with their own testing programs.
Hotels in Las Vegas reopened June 4, but only a fraction of the visitors returned. That’s partly because while the casinos are open, Las Vegas’ famed shows remain shut down.
The conventions that drove a good chunk of the tourism business stopped after COVID-19, helping turn this desert city into a shadow of its former self.
Wynn Resorts, which operates theWynn and Encore hotels, isn’t the only player attempting to put the COVID-19 odds in its favor.
The largest operator on the
Las Vegas strip — MGM Resorts International with 13 hotels — is developing its own rapid-testing program to encourage conventioneers to come back to its many meeting rooms.
But rapid COVID-19 tests aren’t always as accurate as tests that take longer to process.
Hotel operators clearly want to get out the message that Las Vegas is safe to visit. But statistics aren’t helping their cause.
From June 1 to Aug. 31, casino hotels represented five of the six largest possible coronavirus exposure sites in Clark County, Nev., home of the Las Vegas
Strip, according to contact tracing statistics.
The largest site, the Cosmopolitan Hotel, had 304 cases in that time period. The Cosmopolitan was followed by the Bellagio Las
Vegas with 153 cases, MGM Grand with 133, the Venetian Resort with 89, and Caesar’s Palace
Hotel and Casino with 86. The only nonhotel among the top six potential exposure sites was the Clark County Detention Center with 93 cases.
Those hotels were among the first to reopen after the governor allowed casino resorts to begin operating again. State officials caution the statistics reflect only where people first reported symptoms, not necessarily where they contracted the virus.
The data was first reported in late September by the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Reno Gazette-Journal.
I received the data from the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, but without an answer to my question on why it’s not posted on its website.
I am reminded of the branding for Las Vegas: “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
A Cosmopolitan spokesperson said that “the exposure data merely reflects what locations the (infected) individuals recall visiting during a certain period of time.”
The resort’s website says the hotel casino has implemented measures to protect guests, including social distancing rules, hand-sanitizer stations in public areas and complementary personal protective equipment.
Even without the testing programs, it still could be safe to go to Las Vegas, said Jennifer Horney, professor and director of the epidemiology program at the University of Delaware.
She said that staying in a hotel in Las Vegas — or anywhere, for that matter — may not be “inherently dangerous.”
What’s important is that the facility take appropriate guestprotection measures, including requiring masks, limiting the use of shared public spaces and following cleaning protocols.
But Horney also expressed concern that Nevada’s rate of infections is more than 11 percent, double theWorld Health Organization’s goal of no more than 5 percent. She said visitors potentially could contract the disease through a “super spreader event.”
UnlikeWynn Resorts, MGM Resorts is offering rapid testing for convention goers now. One of its hotels, the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, has 2 million square feet of meeting space alone, bigger than most convention centers in the U.S.
“Meetings are a critical part of our business and overall success in Las Vegas, particularly midweek,” MGM spokeswoman Stacy Hamilton said. “We are looking forward to welcoming back groups and believe we have created a program that puts health and safety at the forefront, while also creating an experience that is still very much Las Vegas.”
The rapid testing portion, MGM says, provides results within about 20 minutes. It says those tested will download an app, and if results are negative, they’ll be cleared to enter the convention or meeting. A temperature check also will be taken.
Maddox, theWynn Resorts CEO, insists rapid testing programs are essential.
“I do hope a vaccine will be available and widely adopted soon, but we can’t wait,” he said.
He said local residents “lives and futures depend on Las Vegas attracting millions of tourists and getting back to the business of fun.”
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