Variety stars in pro-mask campaign: Half a Las Vegas is not Las Vegas at all
Photo: Ethan Miller / Getty ImagesThe Lord God has turned on the hot air dryer, a desert wind is blowing around the assembled mimicked world cultural heritage, around the copies of the Eiffel Tower, Trevi Fountain and the Statue of Liberty, it makes people sweat. The drinks and hotel rooms are cheaper than ever, hardly anyone seems sober, after all, you are in Las Vegas, the "city of sin" and bad taste. Virus or not.
Social distancing is an idea from another world here. Half-naked showgirls adorned with artificial feathers strut across the hot asphalt on high heels and, if requested, pose with drunk visitors for frivolous souvenir photos: arm in arm, cheek to cheek. An elderly man wears a T-shirt that says "It is what it is", that's the way it is, the unbelievably unmoved sentence with which Donald Trump repeatedly commented on the Covid 19 death toll in the USA (currently: 171,823) .
On the face of it, it seems like the city's mayor, Carolyn Goodman, is getting her way. Shortly after the lockdown in April, she had demanded in a famous, wandering television interview that Las Vegas should simply ignore the virus: "I want our restaurants to open, I want our small shops to open, I want people back at work. I want everything to be open. "
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