Las Vegas reopens at full capacity, no mask required

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• After being shuttered for more than a year, downtown Las Vegas was completely reopened Tuesday morning to welcome visitors from all over the country.
• Businesses in Sin City are now open at full capacity with no mask or social distancing required.
• Hotels are at 80% occupancy on the weekends, plexiglass dividers were taken down and the city will host the biggest Trade show next week.

Las Vegas reopened Tuesday morning for the first time in more than a year. Crowds cheered in downtown Las Vegas with live a live band playing. Plus, there’s no mask or social distancing required.

An announcer said, “This is rather a historic night in Las Vegas history,” to a mostly maskless crowd.

When the local band sang a version of a Foo Fighters’ song, the crowd danced to the first live music in there in more than a year: “It’s times like these, you learn to live again,” the band sang.

Businesses in Sin City are now open at full capacity without any Covid-19 restrictions. For some people, it was their first vacation since the start of the pandemic.

“It’s really exciting,” said Pam Turner from Shelby, North Carolina. “It feels great,” she said of her first getaway since the pandemic started.

“You just have to see it in order to believe it,” Turner’s mother, Diana Rollins, added. “It’s just so much fun to see all these people doing their thing.”

Las Vegas’ vaccination campaign is helping to drive down new Covid-19 cases. The city still asks those who are not vaccinated to play by the rules and wear masks and practice social distancing.

After the opening celebration, casinos around town started taking down plexiglass dividers that separated slot machines and other gambling stations.

Las Vegas, which largely depends on tourism, is thankful for the vaccines, which provide a much-needed economic boost. In April 2020, the unemployment rate in Vegas rose to 34%, one of the worst rates in the US, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

“It has been more difficult on Las Vegas than probably any city in the United States,” said Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority President Steve Hill.

The Venetian Resort has sold out its convention space for the last seven months of this year, according to CEO George Markantonis.

“We have normal business that we would have pre-pandemic from midyear to the end of the year,” the CEO said.

Hotels are at 80% occupancy on the weekends now, and about 50% on other days, Hill said.

“We need meetings and conventions to come back to improve” that 50%, he said.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) will debut its nearly $1 billion expansion of Vegas’ convention center next week. It will host the nation’s first major trade show since the start of the pandemic.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend. Hill said it will be “the first what we call a citywide event to happen in the United States.”

Source: CNN