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Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman has made news of late for calling Nevada’s coronavirus shutdown “total insanity,” but following a Tuesday cable news interview, it’s Goodman’s sanity that should be questioned.
The Independent mayor made wild health assertions while making her case for a reopening of Vegas during an interview with MSNBC’s Katy Tur, saying, “What I assume is that everybody is a coronavirus carrier — that 100% of our population is asymptomatic, but a carrier.” Goodman continued, “My whole opinion is: get our people back to work.”
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Goodman said that the city needs to protect people’s health while reopening, adding, “Most importantly, take care of our elderly, who are the most susceptible to having a terrible experience or perhaps even dying. And we love our seniors. I happen to be a senior!”
Tur asked how can that protection can be preserved when an open and successful Vegas means crowded casinos with smokers, people touching slot machines, and breathing recycled air, seemingly making it all more susceptible to the coronavirus.
“How do you keep people safe? Do you think it’s possible?” Kur asked.
“Well, absolutely,” Goodman answered, The mayor then rattled off a list of previous epidemics that did not close Vegas without using any context or expressing any knowledge as to why those should compare to the extreme contagion the coronavirus has proven to be.
“We’ve survived the West Nile and SARS, bird flu, E. coli, the swine flu, the Zika virus,” Goodman said.
Tur interjected, saying, “Those were not as contagious, and they did not spread as far as this disease has already done.”
To which Goodman astonishingly replied, “Well, we’ll find out the facts afterward. Unfortunately, we all do better in hindsight.”
“But those are the facts. We have a death toll that proves it,” Tur responded.
As Tur continued to push Goodman, the mayor downplayed the number of cases in Nevada, saying that with over three million citizens, “We have 151, sadly, lost individuals, most of whom had pre-existing conditions.”
Goodman then pushed back on Tur’s point that social distancing may have helped limit the number of cases in the state thus far. The unqualified health expert mayor then cited Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has recommended the complete opposite of what the mayor is advocating for, saying that she “defers to what he has said.”
But Goodman uses what she claims is Fauci’s extended timeline into next year, that the coronavirus could be a menace as a reason for reopening. “So do we absolutely keep everybody out of work and destroy the life of people and our children and next generation because we have a fight on our hands with the virus?” Goodman said.
Tur then gave Goodman room to make a heartless and nonsensical extended explanation (that Goodman is wholly unqualified to make) about how Vegas should proceed.
“I am making the assumption that everybody’s a carrier. So let’s go forward, open up the city, open up whoever wants to but do it in a very responsible, cautious way,” Goodman said.
The mayor then talked again about protecting seniors and children but doesn’t say how she would accomplish it. But there’s a reason for that, and it’s because her reasoning turns more sinister.
Goodman said, ”Assume everybody is a carrier. 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.”
Kur, sounding rather stunned, ended the interview there saying, “That’s a modern-day survival of the fittest that you are laying out in Las Vegas.”
Not only is Goodman’s “everyone is a carrier” assumption preposterous because if everyone is a carrier than no one else can catch it. More importantly, she’s literally advocating for businesses to restart on the premise that a death rate will be a measurement of success — like some kind of mass human experiment. And although Goodman does not have the power to enact any of these changes, the ease in which she expresses them is terrifying, to say the least.
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