16 ms·

One of the standout locations of virus activity for me, and just due to sheer lack of it, is Vegas. It makes no sense how a global city like Vegas who had multi

One of the standout locations of virus activity for me, and just due to sheer lack of it, is Vegas. It makes no sense how a global city like Vegas who had multiple large scale events during the January/February even into early March time frame, and tons of visitors especially for the Chinese new year...215 reported deaths so far. That number although sad is still remarkably low. In a region of 2.2 million with a not great reputation for health and hospitals to only have a death rate of .01% seems amazing with how NY, and countries like France, Spain and Italy have fared. Studies like this and I'm sure the many to come make me really wish we had better contact tracing from the get go and hopefully in years to come there can be some better implementations

ummonk 6y ago
It's possible that there wasn't much transmission from visitors to locals, but rather just visitors transmitting to each other.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  There are locals working on every place that visitors go to.
rogerkirkness 6y ago
Look at a map of NO pollution and overlay covid outcomes. It isn't nearly as bad if you have high vitamin D (Vegas) and low NO pollution (mountains only on one side = good).
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  Is there a study that actually convincingly showed this? Both pollution and infectious disease spread are clearly correlated with population density, so the fact that you see more covid deaths in places with a lot of pollution doesn't mean much unless you statistically control for other effects.
  - xenonite 6y ago
    Yes: "an increase of 1 μg/m3 in PM2.5 is associated with an 8% increase in the COVID-19 death rate (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2%, 15%)." https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm
- xenonite 6y ago
  May I ask for the reason of taking a NO map instead of, say, a NOx map?
- renewiltord 6y ago
  India has hecka pollution and they have low deaths. We can discount their government's ability to register deaths but they can't hide bodies and right now there aren't massive amounts of bodies coming out.
- slooonz 6y ago
  Isn’t just low NO pollution = low pollution = low population density ?
tayo42 6y ago
outside of the strip las vegas is pretty sprawled out with a suburban feel. I don't think the virus really is easily transmitted in that environment. indoors isn't that claustrophobic either outside of nightclubs. casinos have a pretty good amount of space. not like a nyc subway.
eanzenberg 6y ago
Sunlight and heat maybe?
- topspin 6y ago
  No. At least not if another anecdote is of any value. The Grand Rapids metro area of Michigan (February and March are quite cold, April and May starts warming) is about 2.2 million as well and there are less than 100 deaths[1]. This is despite being only about 130 miles west of Detroit where infections rage. [1] counting Kent county and all adjacent counties.
- yters 6y ago
  I think so. Graphing death rate by latitude shows tropics and southern latitudes (summer during cov2 outbreak) have substantially lower death rates than up north. My best guess is sun and heat is the cause.
dogma1138 6y ago
Most people stay in Vegas only for a short time, the casino floors are constantly being cleaned, slot machines are constantly cleaned and inspected, cards and dice are constantly discarded and rotated. Sure no masks and what may appear crowded is not really that, high ceilings, powerful HVAC heat exchange systems which bring air from the outside and overall low population density in the urban areas make Vegas seem actually a pretty safe place compared to say packed motels during Gra or Spring Break. P.S. on an anecdotal note about 6-7 years ago after BH USA I’ve personally witnessed a person that was all sweaty and coughing like they are about to die being escorted by security of the floor after about 15-20min of being around the tables. While I don’t have any sources on to confirm this policy, it really wouldn’t surprise me if casino security monitors people who seem to be ill if nothing else than to avoid the optics of having medics on the casino floor.
- Fr0styMatt88 6y ago
  I remember being delighted at how 'spacious' walking around Vegas felt the first time I went. Malls were wide and walking through shopping areas never felt cramped like it often does here in Australia. I was really surprised; it didn't feel at all like I was expecting it to.
  - AtlasBarfed 6y ago
    Vegas is basically a collection of beached cruise ships. The large hotels want you to stay there, gamble there, eat there, and go nowhere else.
- baby 6y ago
  skeptic me thinks Vegas is mostly a cartel and these numbers might be made up.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    The US isn’t China or Russia while everyone is capable of lying on internal matters it’s much harder to do so in the US. No universal healthcare so billing data is available, local and state governments are do not answer to the federal government on most matters. Press is free and for the most part anyone is free to tweet what ever is going on without the fear of diving out of window.
memonkey 6y ago
A little tin-foily, but I went to Vegas with my family in late December. About 2 weeks after we got back, my dad had a severe case of the flu (so far as we know) and so did my cousin's girlfriend. They were both showing symptoms similar to Covid-19, but because testing was not available then, it's hard to say for sure. And it was flu season then.
- skwb 6y ago
  Hopefully with the roll out of reliable antibody tests we can get the answers to these "mysterious flus" that lot of people anecdotally have. For me at least it would mentally comforting to know if the "flu" that I contracted after traveling to NOLA for Mardi Gras was in fact SARS-CoV-2.
  - gerdesj 6y ago
    SARS-CoV-2 is the virus. covid-19 is the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. There are a few permutations of case, dashes etc. My wife presented with symptoms quite similar to covid-19 to A&E (UK: A&E ~= ER) after a cruise we went on in late November. She has never smoked but she did get quite breathless and shook it off after about a week. As you say, there are a lot of anecdotes. A decent antibody test would be nice but at the moment we don't know enough about how the bloody thing works. Even if you have detectable antibodies after an infection, does that mean you have any immunity to another infection and if so, for how long? My money is on this thing turning into another 'flu after about five years. It will stop killing large numbers of people and evolve into a sort of status quo, just like the seasonal 'flus. It will still be a killer but not quite so aggressive as it is now. It is not as aggressive a killer as Ebola but it spreads far easier. Evolution will ensure that it will find a "happy" medium where it can carry on spreading but we don't still feel the need to eradicate it because we can live with the consequences of the adjusted version. My language in the above para is a bit off but the sentiment is the same. We happily jump into cars every day (not so much now) and kill ourselves and others in pretty large numbers across the world but that is judged an acceptable risk. covid-19 will simply become another one eventually. For now, it is a right old shit show and we do not understand the enemy at all well. We do not know how to live with it. We will.
chrischen 6y ago
Whoever goes to Vegas, doesn't stay in Vegas.
ragona 6y ago
Calling Vegas a "global city" is a bit of a stretch. It's more like a weird theme park surrounded by a whole lot of suburban sprawl. NYC is something like 17x more dense.
- qeternity 6y ago
  Maybe in terms of average density but that's not what matters. In Vegas, the vast majority of people are packed near the strip and density there is much higher than the average for the metro area.
- nostromo 6y ago
  Of American cities it's third highest by international arrivals, at least by one measure. It's behind only New York and Miami in the US, and has more international arrivals than LA, Berlin, Moscow, or Athens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_international_visitors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_internationa...
  - ragona 6y ago
    Sure, but they're all tourists, and they're certainly not coming now. It's a very different flow of humans than the other places you listed.
    - addison-lee 6y ago
      That was their point, they are all tourists.
      - AtlasLion 6y ago
        But those tourists are long back home so their numbers are not showing up in the stats of Vegas itself.
        iso947 6y ago
        Increases the chance of bringing covid in earlier and thus passing to residents
ipqk 6y ago
I was there in January for Lunar New Year. I came down with something mild there and was super worried it was Covid-19, even though it was barely on any american's radar back then. I play a lot of table games, and casino chips are pretty disgusting in the best of time. I Immediately washed my hands every time I left the table.
humaniania 6y ago
Any smart casino employee is very careful about not touching their faces and washing their hands thoroughly after each shift, with all the shared surfaces that they work with. I would guess that their immune systems are already primed from their average exposure levels. Maybe it's the dryness?
S_A_P 6y ago
I was in Vegas end of January(actually heard about Kobe's helicopter crash there). I remember it was a blip on the radar at the time, but people were still thinking that it was localized to China. While they do keep casinos pretty clean, there is still just a lot of hand to machine contact and not to mention higher than average smoking(raising your dirty hand to your mouth). It is a pretty phenomenally low number. I wonder, though if its low because of the transient nature of people in Vegas. They could have gone to vegas and gotten sick long after returning home.
Ma8ee 6y ago
Do they really have a lot of events with many international visitors? I had the impression that it was mostly Americans that went to Las Vegas.
- not2b 6y ago
  Yes, CES is the biggest consumer electronics trade show in the world, and it was held in early January. Lots of Asian companies presented there, or were there to make deals. It was Jan 7-10 this year, just before travel restrictions went into effect.
- ImprovedSilence 6y ago
  Many big BIG international conventions take place in Vegas. If there's an industry for it, they probably have a convention in Vegas. It makes sense for Vegas the city to incentivise cheap flights/hotels, which makes it more appealing for business groups to meet there. And of course come spend money in the casinos and restaurants after a hard days work of conferencing! I know a few people that went to Vegas just to party for a long weekend etc. But the vast majority of people I know that went to Vegas, went "for work". Also yes, CES is a big deal.
- kube-system 6y ago
  They get 42 million visitors per year and 20% are international https://www.lvcva.com/stats-and-facts/visitor-statistics/faq/ https://www.lvcva.com/stats-and-facts/visitor-statistics/faq...
u801e 6y ago
> It makes no sense how a global city like Vegas who had multiple large scale events during the January/February even into early March time frame, and tons of visitors especially for the Chinese new year...215 reported deaths so far. That number although sad is still remarkably low. Perhaps a lot of those visitors left the area before symptoms developed.
- tialaramex 6y ago
  Right, 7-14 day incubation period. I'm sure there are people who decide to spend 2+ weeks in Vegas but mostly what I hear about are long weekends, or a two day stop as part of a bigger holiday. But, if it became endemic in Vegas it would start to infect locals. The blackjack dealer and the waitress and the floor manager are still there after you come home.
appcloud 6y ago
The low number of infections in Vegas could be due to the weather. Vegas has a pretty warm and dry climate. It's possible the virus does not transmit as easily in this type of weather. Would be interesting to know to know if anyone is studying the effects, if any, climate has on the transmission of the virus.
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  I thought humidity is what viruses hate.
  - rriepe 6y ago
    SARS-CoV-2 seems to hate both dryness and humidity. It thrives in mid-range humidity, particularly the chilly but not freezing environments. This take has held up pretty well. Look at how much more mid-range NYC is humidity-wise than the others: https://twitter.com/JeromeRoos/status/1236733607902937089 https://twitter.com/JeromeRoos/status/1236733607902937089
    - newsclues 6y ago
      Guayaquil Ecuador is hot and humid and they have a pretty bad death rate.
  - appcloud 6y ago
    Agree with you, that has been true. There could be something unique about this one though maybe. Instead of transmission it could be it just thrives better in one climate vs. another. It’s also very possible that climate isn’t playing or is having a very limited role as well.
- checker659 6y ago
  Vegas in winter is pretty cold. I was there for CES this year and the weather was nothing like I'd imagined.
syntheticnature 6y ago
Well, it is thought there was at least some COVID-19 spread at CES in early January: https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/04/23/covid-infected-attendee-ces-tech-conference https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/04/23/covid-infected-a...
sjg007 6y ago
Febreeze man.. the air is saturated with it. Plus it’s dry. Also Vegas has really good ventilation. Hotel rooms have independent HVACs.
- nostromo 6y ago
  > Plus it’s dry. Some viruses, like flu, prefer dry air. That's actually the reason flu spreads better in winter -- because colder air is less humid. https://news.yale.edu/2019/05/13/flu-virus-best-friend-low-humidity https://news.yale.edu/2019/05/13/flu-virus-best-friend-low-h...
cameldrv 6y ago
I have a theory: From reading a bunch of case studies, it seems that the main route of transmission is microdroplets hanging in the air. A huge majority of transmission comes from being near someone for an extended period of time (30 min or so) indoors. Since smoking is allowed in most casinos, they have extremely powerful ventilation and air filtration systems, so that their non-smoking customers aren't excessively bothered. If you've been in a Vegas casino and seen someone smoking, you notice that the smoke almost instantly gets sucked into the ceiling. This may dramatically reduce transmission in casinos or other venues that allow smoking.
- dwd 6y ago
  The initial 15 min rule (for whether you might get infected from close proximity to someone infected) was based on the idea that offices cycle their volume of air every 10 minutes, but casinos that allowing smoking may cycle their air more often. This was often cited as a reason why everyone on a flight won't catch it, just those in nearby rows. Vegas also doesn't have a subway system, which was cited as why it spread so rapidly in NY.
  - astrange 6y ago
    Many places that are doing well (esp in Asia) have more extensive subway systems than NYC. However the people there might be more hygienic, or maybe the operators are cleaning more often.
    - rosywoozlechan 6y ago
      Or wear masks.
    - rwallace 6y ago
      I've seen it plausibly argued that in e.g. Japan, they have a culture of not talking on your phone on the subway, and this substantially reduces transmission.
      - 6y ago
ashtonkem 6y ago
It’s probable that very few of the people who got sick in Vegas stayed in Vegas; a huge percentage of the people in Vegas on a regular day are short term vacationers.
pdeuchler 6y ago
I know a bunch of people who went to RSA in Vegas that got a mysterious flu that was extremely similar to Covid. Given the Vegas mayor's recent publicity it wouldn't surprise me that Vegas was fudging the numbers. Most people who work in customer facing roles in Vegas are already extremely paranoid and careful about hygiene. Gloves, constant cleaning of commonly touched surfaces, etc. Being a low level casino/hotel employee teaches you very quickly that humans are just sentient germ dispersal machines.
- codezero 6y ago
  Also, people with the flu probably wait to get home to seek care, so Vegas may only be able to account for its own population, and any severe cases that couldn't travel home first.
- kayfox 6y ago
  RSA 2020 was in San Francisco at the Moscone center.
xtracto 6y ago
Funny that you mention Vegas: I actually think I got it there (in the airport) on the 21st of February. I went to California for a meeting on that week, and took a flight back to Mexico City, with a 6 hour airport scale in Las Vegas. My flight was delayed, so I was in the airpot for about 8 hours. I decided to walk a lot during my time at the airport (I do that when I have long flights), so I walked about 20,000 steps in total back and forth in the waiting hall. About one week later (beginning of March), I started with symptoms and since then it has been a nightmare from which I still haven't completely recovered.
- throwaway1777 6y ago
  Impossible to say it was vegas based on that. It could have easily been something in California.
mmaunder 6y ago
Don’t quote me on this. It’s late and just for fun I’ll throw out a crazy theory. 1. Visitors who are vulnerable went home and took Covid with them. They contributed to their home city counts. 2. Vegas natives who work on the strip are protected via second hand smoke inhalation. Source: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/05/02/smokers-seem-less-likely-than-non-smokers-to-fall-ill-with-covid-19 https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/05/02/... /crazy
tathougies 6y ago
Really it makes great sense to me. The casinos are a world of their own. Hardly any Las Vegas natives go there. Honestly, given my brief time spent with someone actually from Las Vegas, I'd say the invisible wall between the Strip and the rest of the city is probably as good a deterrent as many international borders. Also, there's a chance your stats are being thrown off by the fact that Las Vegas the city doesn't have very many world-class casinos. All the popular areas are actually in unincorporated Clark county, in an unincorporated community known as Paradise, NV. Make sure you include those.
econcon 6y ago
Maybe most of the people in Vegas don't actually live in Vegas.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ummonk 6y ago

It's possible that there wasn't much transmission from visitors to locals, but rather just visitors transmitting to each other.

marcosdumay 6y ago
There are locals working on every place that visitors go to.

rogerkirkness 6y ago

Look at a map of NO pollution and overlay covid outcomes. It isn't nearly as bad if you have high vitamin D (Vegas) and low NO pollution (mountains only on one side = good).

DangerousPie 6y ago
Is there a study that actually convincingly showed this? Both pollution and infectious disease spread are clearly correlated with population density, so the fact that you see more covid deaths in places with a lot of pollution doesn't mean much unless you statistically control for other effects.
- xenonite 6y ago
  Yes: "an increase of 1 μg/m3 in PM2.5 is associated with an 8% increase in the COVID-19 death rate (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2%, 15%)." https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm
xenonite 6y ago
May I ask for the reason of taking a NO map instead of, say, a NOx map?
renewiltord 6y ago
India has hecka pollution and they have low deaths. We can discount their government's ability to register deaths but they can't hide bodies and right now there aren't massive amounts of bodies coming out.
slooonz 6y ago
Isn’t just low NO pollution = low pollution = low population density ?

tayo42 6y ago

outside of the strip las vegas is pretty sprawled out with a suburban feel. I don't think the virus really is easily transmitted in that environment. indoors isn't that claustrophobic either outside of nightclubs. casinos have a pretty good amount of space. not like a nyc subway.

eanzenberg 6y ago

Sunlight and heat maybe?

topspin 6y ago
No. At least not if another anecdote is of any value. The Grand Rapids metro area of Michigan (February and March are quite cold, April and May starts warming) is about 2.2 million as well and there are less than 100 deaths[1]. This is despite being only about 130 miles west of Detroit where infections rage. [1] counting Kent county and all adjacent counties.
yters 6y ago
I think so. Graphing death rate by latitude shows tropics and southern latitudes (summer during cov2 outbreak) have substantially lower death rates than up north. My best guess is sun and heat is the cause.

dogma1138 6y ago

Most people stay in Vegas only for a short time, the casino floors are constantly being cleaned, slot machines are constantly cleaned and inspected, cards and dice are constantly discarded and rotated. Sure no masks and what may appear crowded is not really that, high ceilings, powerful HVAC heat exchange systems which bring air from the outside and overall low population density in the urban areas make Vegas seem actually a pretty safe place compared to say packed motels during Gra or Spring Break. P.S. on an anecdotal note about 6-7 years ago after BH USA I’ve personally witnessed a person that was all sweaty and coughing like they are about to die being escorted by security of the floor after about 15-20min of being around the tables. While I don’t have any sources on to confirm this policy, it really wouldn’t surprise me if casino security monitors people who seem to be ill if nothing else than to avoid the optics of having medics on the casino floor.

Fr0styMatt88 6y ago
I remember being delighted at how 'spacious' walking around Vegas felt the first time I went. Malls were wide and walking through shopping areas never felt cramped like it often does here in Australia. I was really surprised; it didn't feel at all like I was expecting it to.
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  Vegas is basically a collection of beached cruise ships. The large hotels want you to stay there, gamble there, eat there, and go nowhere else.
baby 6y ago
skeptic me thinks Vegas is mostly a cartel and these numbers might be made up.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  The US isn’t China or Russia while everyone is capable of lying on internal matters it’s much harder to do so in the US. No universal healthcare so billing data is available, local and state governments are do not answer to the federal government on most matters. Press is free and for the most part anyone is free to tweet what ever is going on without the fear of diving out of window.

memonkey 6y ago

A little tin-foily, but I went to Vegas with my family in late December. About 2 weeks after we got back, my dad had a severe case of the flu (so far as we know) and so did my cousin's girlfriend. They were both showing symptoms similar to Covid-19, but because testing was not available then, it's hard to say for sure. And it was flu season then.

skwb 6y ago
Hopefully with the roll out of reliable antibody tests we can get the answers to these "mysterious flus" that lot of people anecdotally have. For me at least it would mentally comforting to know if the "flu" that I contracted after traveling to NOLA for Mardi Gras was in fact SARS-CoV-2.
- gerdesj 6y ago
  SARS-CoV-2 is the virus. covid-19 is the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. There are a few permutations of case, dashes etc. My wife presented with symptoms quite similar to covid-19 to A&E (UK: A&E ~= ER) after a cruise we went on in late November. She has never smoked but she did get quite breathless and shook it off after about a week. As you say, there are a lot of anecdotes. A decent antibody test would be nice but at the moment we don't know enough about how the bloody thing works. Even if you have detectable antibodies after an infection, does that mean you have any immunity to another infection and if so, for how long? My money is on this thing turning into another 'flu after about five years. It will stop killing large numbers of people and evolve into a sort of status quo, just like the seasonal 'flus. It will still be a killer but not quite so aggressive as it is now. It is not as aggressive a killer as Ebola but it spreads far easier. Evolution will ensure that it will find a "happy" medium where it can carry on spreading but we don't still feel the need to eradicate it because we can live with the consequences of the adjusted version. My language in the above para is a bit off but the sentiment is the same. We happily jump into cars every day (not so much now) and kill ourselves and others in pretty large numbers across the world but that is judged an acceptable risk. covid-19 will simply become another one eventually. For now, it is a right old shit show and we do not understand the enemy at all well. We do not know how to live with it. We will.

chrischen 6y ago

Whoever goes to Vegas, doesn't stay in Vegas.

ragona 6y ago

Calling Vegas a "global city" is a bit of a stretch. It's more like a weird theme park surrounded by a whole lot of suburban sprawl. NYC is something like 17x more dense.

qeternity 6y ago
Maybe in terms of average density but that's not what matters. In Vegas, the vast majority of people are packed near the strip and density there is much higher than the average for the metro area.
nostromo 6y ago
Of American cities it's third highest by international arrivals, at least by one measure. It's behind only New York and Miami in the US, and has more international arrivals than LA, Berlin, Moscow, or Athens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_international_visitors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_internationa...
- ragona 6y ago
  Sure, but they're all tourists, and they're certainly not coming now. It's a very different flow of humans than the other places you listed.
  - addison-lee 6y ago
    That was their point, they are all tourists.
    - AtlasLion 6y ago
      But those tourists are long back home so their numbers are not showing up in the stats of Vegas itself.
      - iso947 6y ago
        Increases the chance of bringing covid in earlier and thus passing to residents

ipqk 6y ago

I was there in January for Lunar New Year. I came down with something mild there and was super worried it was Covid-19, even though it was barely on any american's radar back then. I play a lot of table games, and casino chips are pretty disgusting in the best of time. I Immediately washed my hands every time I left the table.

humaniania 6y ago

Any smart casino employee is very careful about not touching their faces and washing their hands thoroughly after each shift, with all the shared surfaces that they work with. I would guess that their immune systems are already primed from their average exposure levels. Maybe it's the dryness?

S_A_P 6y ago

I was in Vegas end of January(actually heard about Kobe's helicopter crash there). I remember it was a blip on the radar at the time, but people were still thinking that it was localized to China. While they do keep casinos pretty clean, there is still just a lot of hand to machine contact and not to mention higher than average smoking(raising your dirty hand to your mouth). It is a pretty phenomenally low number. I wonder, though if its low because of the transient nature of people in Vegas. They could have gone to vegas and gotten sick long after returning home.

Ma8ee 6y ago

Do they really have a lot of events with many international visitors? I had the impression that it was mostly Americans that went to Las Vegas.

not2b 6y ago
Yes, CES is the biggest consumer electronics trade show in the world, and it was held in early January. Lots of Asian companies presented there, or were there to make deals. It was Jan 7-10 this year, just before travel restrictions went into effect.
ImprovedSilence 6y ago
Many big BIG international conventions take place in Vegas. If there's an industry for it, they probably have a convention in Vegas. It makes sense for Vegas the city to incentivise cheap flights/hotels, which makes it more appealing for business groups to meet there. And of course come spend money in the casinos and restaurants after a hard days work of conferencing! I know a few people that went to Vegas just to party for a long weekend etc. But the vast majority of people I know that went to Vegas, went "for work". Also yes, CES is a big deal.
kube-system 6y ago
They get 42 million visitors per year and 20% are international https://www.lvcva.com/stats-and-facts/visitor-statistics/faq/ https://www.lvcva.com/stats-and-facts/visitor-statistics/faq...

u801e 6y ago

> It makes no sense how a global city like Vegas who had multiple large scale events during the January/February even into early March time frame, and tons of visitors especially for the Chinese new year...215 reported deaths so far. That number although sad is still remarkably low. Perhaps a lot of those visitors left the area before symptoms developed.

tialaramex 6y ago
Right, 7-14 day incubation period. I'm sure there are people who decide to spend 2+ weeks in Vegas but mostly what I hear about are long weekends, or a two day stop as part of a bigger holiday. But, if it became endemic in Vegas it would start to infect locals. The blackjack dealer and the waitress and the floor manager are still there after you come home.

appcloud 6y ago

The low number of infections in Vegas could be due to the weather. Vegas has a pretty warm and dry climate. It's possible the virus does not transmit as easily in this type of weather. Would be interesting to know to know if anyone is studying the effects, if any, climate has on the transmission of the virus.

jonny_eh 6y ago
I thought humidity is what viruses hate.
- rriepe 6y ago
  SARS-CoV-2 seems to hate both dryness and humidity. It thrives in mid-range humidity, particularly the chilly but not freezing environments. This take has held up pretty well. Look at how much more mid-range NYC is humidity-wise than the others: https://twitter.com/JeromeRoos/status/1236733607902937089 https://twitter.com/JeromeRoos/status/1236733607902937089
  - newsclues 6y ago
    Guayaquil Ecuador is hot and humid and they have a pretty bad death rate.
- appcloud 6y ago
  Agree with you, that has been true. There could be something unique about this one though maybe. Instead of transmission it could be it just thrives better in one climate vs. another. It’s also very possible that climate isn’t playing or is having a very limited role as well.
checker659 6y ago
Vegas in winter is pretty cold. I was there for CES this year and the weather was nothing like I'd imagined.

syntheticnature 6y ago

Well, it is thought there was at least some COVID-19 spread at CES in early January: https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/04/23/covid-infected-attendee-ces-tech-conference https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/04/23/covid-infected-a...

sjg007 6y ago

Febreeze man.. the air is saturated with it. Plus it’s dry. Also Vegas has really good ventilation. Hotel rooms have independent HVACs.

nostromo 6y ago
> Plus it’s dry. Some viruses, like flu, prefer dry air. That's actually the reason flu spreads better in winter -- because colder air is less humid. https://news.yale.edu/2019/05/13/flu-virus-best-friend-low-humidity https://news.yale.edu/2019/05/13/flu-virus-best-friend-low-h...

cameldrv 6y ago

I have a theory: From reading a bunch of case studies, it seems that the main route of transmission is microdroplets hanging in the air. A huge majority of transmission comes from being near someone for an extended period of time (30 min or so) indoors. Since smoking is allowed in most casinos, they have extremely powerful ventilation and air filtration systems, so that their non-smoking customers aren't excessively bothered. If you've been in a Vegas casino and seen someone smoking, you notice that the smoke almost instantly gets sucked into the ceiling. This may dramatically reduce transmission in casinos or other venues that allow smoking.

dwd 6y ago
The initial 15 min rule (for whether you might get infected from close proximity to someone infected) was based on the idea that offices cycle their volume of air every 10 minutes, but casinos that allowing smoking may cycle their air more often. This was often cited as a reason why everyone on a flight won't catch it, just those in nearby rows. Vegas also doesn't have a subway system, which was cited as why it spread so rapidly in NY.
- astrange 6y ago
  Many places that are doing well (esp in Asia) have more extensive subway systems than NYC. However the people there might be more hygienic, or maybe the operators are cleaning more often.
  - rosywoozlechan 6y ago
    Or wear masks.
  - rwallace 6y ago
    I've seen it plausibly argued that in e.g. Japan, they have a culture of not talking on your phone on the subway, and this substantially reduces transmission.
    - 6y ago

ashtonkem 6y ago

It’s probable that very few of the people who got sick in Vegas stayed in Vegas; a huge percentage of the people in Vegas on a regular day are short term vacationers.

pdeuchler 6y ago

I know a bunch of people who went to RSA in Vegas that got a mysterious flu that was extremely similar to Covid. Given the Vegas mayor's recent publicity it wouldn't surprise me that Vegas was fudging the numbers. Most people who work in customer facing roles in Vegas are already extremely paranoid and careful about hygiene. Gloves, constant cleaning of commonly touched surfaces, etc. Being a low level casino/hotel employee teaches you very quickly that humans are just sentient germ dispersal machines.

codezero 6y ago
Also, people with the flu probably wait to get home to seek care, so Vegas may only be able to account for its own population, and any severe cases that couldn't travel home first.
kayfox 6y ago
RSA 2020 was in San Francisco at the Moscone center.

xtracto 6y ago

Funny that you mention Vegas: I actually think I got it there (in the airport) on the 21st of February. I went to California for a meeting on that week, and took a flight back to Mexico City, with a 6 hour airport scale in Las Vegas. My flight was delayed, so I was in the airpot for about 8 hours. I decided to walk a lot during my time at the airport (I do that when I have long flights), so I walked about 20,000 steps in total back and forth in the waiting hall. About one week later (beginning of March), I started with symptoms and since then it has been a nightmare from which I still haven't completely recovered.

throwaway1777 6y ago
Impossible to say it was vegas based on that. It could have easily been something in California.

mmaunder 6y ago

Don’t quote me on this. It’s late and just for fun I’ll throw out a crazy theory. 1. Visitors who are vulnerable went home and took Covid with them. They contributed to their home city counts. 2. Vegas natives who work on the strip are protected via second hand smoke inhalation. Source: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/05/02/smokers-seem-less-likely-than-non-smokers-to-fall-ill-with-covid-19 https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/05/02/... /crazy

tathougies 6y ago

Really it makes great sense to me. The casinos are a world of their own. Hardly any Las Vegas natives go there. Honestly, given my brief time spent with someone actually from Las Vegas, I'd say the invisible wall between the Strip and the rest of the city is probably as good a deterrent as many international borders. Also, there's a chance your stats are being thrown off by the fact that Las Vegas the city doesn't have very many world-class casinos. All the popular areas are actually in unincorporated Clark county, in an unincorporated community known as Paradise, NV. Make sure you include those.

econcon 6y ago

Maybe most of the people in Vegas don't actually live in Vegas.

deleted 6y ago

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