Nevada Governor Extends Stay-at-Home Order

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak announced Wednesday that he would extend the state’s “stay-at-home” order.

“Unfortunately, we’re going to have to extend the ‘Stay at Home’ order that we have for a little bit because we have not reached exactly where we want to get on the downward trajectory,” Sisolak told ABC News.

Sisolak, who announced last week that the state would reopen in phases. also said the state’s COVID-19 numbers “have plateaued.” He said:

Our statistics have plateaued. We’ve got almost 5,000 cases now in the State of Nevada, 225 fatalities, so those numbers have kind of stabilized and our hospitalizations and our intensive care hospitalizations have begun to decline, so that’s what we’re looking for to continue to bring our economy back to life a little bit.

Gov. Sisolak also said he would later share details of Nevada’s recovery process, dubbed the “Roadmap to Recovery.” He went into some detail with ABC News on what to expect:

As you know, we’re calling it ‘Nevada United Roadmap to Recovery. We’re going to ease some of the restrictions that we had previously as it relates to retail curbside pickup, some of our outdoor activities, we’re going to loosen up some of the restrictions on.

Asked whether casinos would open, as Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman has pushed for, Sisolak said, “Well, Mayor Goodman has downtown Las Vegas, the Strip is actually Clark County, and we’ve got a great partnership with Chairwoman Kirkpatrick and the County Commission and Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve in particular to help us with the reopening.”

Without providing too much detail, Sisolak said the opening process of casinos and resorts is not as easy as “flipping on a switch.” He stated

I have regular contact with the resort operators. It’s not something as simple as flipping a switch and suddenly everybody’s going to come back to Las Vegas. We’re going to have to work on the travel part of this, that’s one of the reasons why we’re joining with the other states.

The opening of casinos and the gaming enterprises will probably come in a third or fourth phase in what we’re doing here because we’re just not quite ready yet to handle that type of volume.

Sisolak concluded by saying he wants everyone to visit Las Vegas, but he wants them to visit in a safe manner:

We want everybody to come to Las Vegas, Las Vegas is a great place. Reno’s a good place to come and have a great time as well but it has to be safe and that’s what we need to do for our employees and for our visitors who are coming here. Our Culinary Union 226, for example who handles the Strip, they’ve had 11 fatalities of their members and I’m going to do everything that I can to make sure that they don’t double that number in the future.

As of Wednesday, Nevada has 4,690 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 219 deaths as a result of the virus.