Vegas mayor ready to gamble on reopening city in coronavirus trial run. People are livid

The mayor of Las Vegas is calling for the major tourist destination to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic to act as a “control group,” she told CNN.

Mayor Carolyn Goodman told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Wednesday that she would not provide any guidelines on how to safely reopen the city.

“I am not a private owner,” she said to CNN. “That’s the competition in this country. The free enterprise and to be able to make sure that what you offer the public meets the needs of the public.”

Goodman has been very vocal about the city’s shut down over the past weeks. She even called Nevada’s coronavirus shutdown “total insanity,” according to the Associated Press.

The city is one of the hardest hit in the country by the coronavirus pandemic with tourists staying at home, the news outlet reported.

While the Las Vegas Strip’s hotels and casinos have been shut down and hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, Goodman, however, does not have authority over The Strip, according to an interview with MSNBC. The Strip is in unincorporated Clark County, Goodman said on MSNBC. Still, the mayor has strong opinions about reopening the city.

“For heaven’s sake, being closed is killing us already, and killing Las Vegas, our industry, our convention and tourism business that we have all worked so hard to build,” she said at the start of a city council meeting, according to the AP. “The longer we wait to do this, the more impossible it will become to recover.”

In an interview with MSNBC’s Katy Tur, Goodman said she believes 100% of the population is a coronavirus carrier.

“Assume everybody is a carrier,” the mayor said Tuesday on MSNBC. “And then you start from an even slate. And tell the people what to do. And let the businesses open and competition will destroy that business if, in fact, they become evident that they have disease, they’re closed down. It’s that simple.”

On Wednesday, however, Goodman’s response on CNN garnered national attention, with some calling for her resignation.

Jimmy Kimmel said on Twitter that Goodman is “dangerously misguided.”

Many other people found her comments dangerous and outrageous.

This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 5:19 PM with the headline "Vegas mayor ready to gamble on reopening city in coronavirus trial run. People are livid."