COVID-19, Vegas and You. Cancelling Trips or Nah?

As we muddle through what was supposed to be our grand, bring America back, Summer a few stumbling blocks have appeared in our road to full recovery.

Vegas, it appears, is NOT as back as we have been led to believe, nor is the hospitality industry as vaccinated as we were led to believe. As cases in Clark County surge, primarily due to the Delta variant, and County leaders have mandated that masks go back on the worker's faces, if not the public who is largely importing this virus.

Post-Vaccine availability it was expected that Vegas was about to enter a new "golden age", for casino profits that is. The expectation being that people who had been cooped up for over a year were beyond ready to hit the pools, the night clubs, the shows, etc. And early numbers showed this to be true. In fact, after things opened up on June 1st Vegas was overflowing. People were coming out of the woodworks to drink booze, pass out on the Strip, lose money and generally spend a ton of money doing Vegas things.

This played out as advertised for a while, but now it appears that rising COVID-19 cases, both in Clark County and as a result of people travelling to Las Vegas, is starting to blunt the demand. Rumors are that airport arrivals are, just recently down, and traffic isn't as bad as usual on the highways. Anecdotal evidence yes, but based on the offers that I'm seeing from the casinos evidence is there that they are suddenly scrambling to fill rooms.

Which, finally, winds around to the point of this post:  Are you still planning your Las Vegas trip or are you postponing it until a later time?

For me, the answer is that I'm still going. Granted, Mrs. TPM and I are a special case in that a. we're both fully vaxxed and b. we have no kids or other family living with us that would be a concern.

For others I'm sure the calculus is not as cut and dried. But it would be interesting to understand just how large the "I'm going no matter what" contingent in relation to the "nope, not at this time" group.

DOES Las Vegas have a COVID-19 perception problem? Are the casino workers 100% vaccinated at certain properties like they claimed?  Or were some playing a little fast and loose with the numbers?

Regardless of any of that one thing is clear: Cases (and more worryingly hospitalizations) are rising, suggesting that Clark County has a vaccination issue that needs to be addressed.

Are you going to allow them to address it?  Or are you going just because dammit you need that Vegas fix and will live with the consequences?

One last coda to this: Despite the fact that we're fully vaxxed there is the possibility that Mrs. TPM and I will be donning masks in casinos in solidarity with the workers who are required to do so, and out of simple politeness to them.

Yes, we expect to get some weird looks for this. Then again, we might not for the simple reason that it sends a bad message about the effectiveness of vaccines. I'm still working through which option is better.