Ok, so now we know what the governor was waiting for — for whatever happened in the past week (the reduced testing, etc) to get the *reported* Rt number down under 1.00.

Here’s the bad news/good news, bad news first. (Thread)

1. If there is an argument that justifies staying wide open without visitor restrictions (i.e. we are at war with the virus, casinos are our economic engine and solve our employment issues and we need to focus our efforts there), then that is the case that needs to be presented.

Instead, the reality is that right now our testing capacity is maxed out, and we spent the past week fixing data and pretending that whether there was a July 4th spike is ambiguous when it quite plainly is not.

2. Data fixing is a short-term fix — what happens with the virus is relative. For example, Florida did quite the similar thing just before exploding and putting up 10k and 15k days.

3. The good news is that people have started to stop coming on their own. As I said back then, bars closing — including in casinos — is a bigger move than it might look on paper, and likely have helped reduce visitation.

Smaller crowds are much safer.

4. The caveat is that the picture that we’re getting is that the Governor cannot close gyms, pools, and in-restaurant dining without closing casinos. Therefore, all of this stays open, for better or (more likely) for worse.

5. Closing thoughts. I’m obviously disappointed with the direction that all of this has taken. My preference is that instead of pretending that everything is ok, that we’d actually make the effort to be the safest destination on the country.

I’m disappointed in the lack of leadership. Right now we’re all individually rationalizing why some of the things we do are safe, while others aren’t.

Like before the pandemic, I had three gym memberships. I quit the spin classes because of the idea of blowing air around the room and not really wanting to do it without a mask. But I’m still in the gym 7-8 times a week.

I know this is not optimal; I also know others are dumber.

We all have friends who go the Strip or downtown and go to bars and parties. They will go because they are open and we don’t see things the same way. Some of these people we can’t avoid.

And all of this is because the governor cannot tell us not to do these things while keeping the casinos open to visitors.