'We're not test subjects. We're people': Las Vegas mayor criticised over coronavirus CNN interview

'Everyone wants to go back to a safe and secure workplace and not be an experiment in a petri dish'

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman has been criticised for an interview with Anderson Cooper, where she said the city could serve as a test study for ending social distancing measures.

During an appearance on CNN on Wednesday, Ms Goodman said that Las Vegas should reopen its casinos and hotels, so that people can go back to work.

“I offered to be a control group and I was told by our statistician you can’t do that because people from all parts of southern Nevada come in to work in the city,” the mayor said.

“We would love to be that placebo side, so you have something to measure against.”

When asked by Mr Cooper how casinos would be able to enforce social distancing and stop employees and guests contracting Covid-19, Ms Goodman said: “That’s up to them to figure out. I don’t own a casino.”

Nevada governor Steve Sisolak, who ordered the closure of the area’s casinos and hotels in March, criticised Ms Goodman’s comments in a follow up interview with Mr Cooper.

“I will not allow the citizens of Nevada, our Nevadans, to be used as a control group, as a placebo, whatever she wants to call it,” Mr Sisolak said.

He added that the number of coronavirus related deaths in the state of Nevada increased after Mr Cooper’s interview with the mayor, and reiterated that now is not the time to reopen Las Vegas.

“We want to welcome everybody back to Las Vegas,” he added. “We want to welcome them back to the lights on the Strip. But it’s not today and it’s not tomorrow.”

Alexander Acosta, a bartender at the Caesar Forum Conference Centre, told NBC News that Ms Goodman’s comments angered workers in the city.

“We’re not test subjects. We’re people. We are employees,” he said. “We try to live every day as we can. We shouldn’t be test subjects.”

D Taylor, the president of trade union, Unite Here, told the outlet that the mayors comments are “one of the worst things I’ve heard.”

The union represents more than 300,000 hospitality workers in the US, and Mr Taylor added that employee safety should be a priority.

“Nobody wants people to go back more than I do, but everyone wants to go back to a safe and secure workplace and not be an experiment in a petri dish,” he said.

Despite the backlash, the mayor told the Las Vegas Review Journal that she has received an “overwhelming” amount of support and hate for her comments.

According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, nationally there are upwards of 842,624 people who have tested positive for coronavirus. The death toll has reached at least 46,785.