Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak told News 3 that he and his team of medical and scientific experts are waiting to see a 14-day trend that shows a steady decrease in the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, which is in line with guidelines coming from the White House.
“I know people are anxious. I know people want a date. I would like nothing better than to give you a date. But what I have to look for – I’m not determining when this date is going to be. The virus and the science is determining when this date is going to be,” Sisolak said. “I do not want to risk the chance of undoing it by opening a week or two early and then have us have another spike and have to shut everything back down again and start back at square zero.”
“My experts are telling me that we’ve reached a plateau we think. It goes up a little bit, down a little bit, up a little bit, down a little bit. We’re moving to a plateau level. We have not started that trajectory downward where you’re seeing a reduction in the number of hospitalizations on not just one day, but on a steady basis,” he said. “You’re not going to know that you’re on the way until you’re a certain amount of time into it, so you see that it’s just not an anomaly that you’ve had a one or two day dip.”
News 3 asked the governor if he had a response to Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman’s comments during an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN on Wednesday. Simply put, he says they disagree, but Las Vegas will become Las Vegas again eventually.
“It’s a great place to come and enjoy yourself and have a great weekend, just not today. Today is not the day,” he said. “But when the days comes, we’re going to welcome everybody back with open arms, and Las Vegas will continue to be one of the safest places in the world to come and visit.”
News 3 also asked the governor if he plans on extending his stay-at-home order that was slated to expire on April 30, 2020.
“Well, it’s going to have to be extended for some things, clearly. I mean, we’re not going to open up The Strip. I worked with Chair [Sandra Douglass] Morgan of the Gaming Control Board – we’re certainly not opening up The Strip,” he said. “What will be done, if it’s possible, to have some opening restrictions by then, I don’t ‘know right now. If you’re asking me that today, no, I can’t say that we’re opening up. But if you ask me that question in seven days, well maybe we will start to see that trajectory that I spoke of going downward. We’re going to know that when we get just a couple of days out, but we’re not there yet. I don’t want to give anybody any false hope.”