(Jessica Chasmar | The Washington Times) – Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said Wednesday that Nevada’s closure of nonessential businesses due to the coronavirus is “total insanity.”
“This shutdown has become one of total insanity, in my opinion,” the mayor said during Wednesday’s City Council Meeting, FOX 5 reported. “For there is no backup of data as to why we are shutdown from the start. No plan in place how to move through the shutdown or how even to come out of it.”
Ms. Goodman said the number of deaths in the state has been low compared to the number of Nevadans who are now out of work due to the shutdown.
“Tragically, we have already lost, to this virus, 128 individuals in Nevada, many of complications attributed in part to COVID-19,” she said. “But let me tell you, with a population of 3.2 million living in Nevada, those whom we have lost represent less than a half of one percent of our population, which has caused us to shut down the entire state and everything that makes Nevada unique.
“These are families that no longer have the ability to buy food for their children and other loved ones. Pay their bills. Pay their rent. Pay their mortgage. Pay their car payment. Or enjoy the life that they had prior to this shut down,” she continued. “Small businesses and those on week-to-week paychecks have been forced to close. Entire savings that were invested in these small businesses are being lost or have already been lost. Hotels and restaurants, our entire tourism and convention industry business, has been shut down.
“It makes no sense,” she added.
The mayor then called on Gov. Steve Sisolak to reopen the state.