Las Vegas (United States) (AFP)

The unusual tranquility of the famous Las Vegas Strip, whose hotels and casinos have been closed since mid-March, hides a bruised city wondering about its future: what will the gaming capital look like in the next world?

As elsewhere in the country, voices are opposed on the difficult compromise to find between health imperatives and the survival of the tourist industry, the city's economic lung.

The powerful local Culinary Workers Union, which represents some 60,000 hotel and casino workers, says 98% of its members have lost their jobs since the start of the pandemic.

But a dozen of them also lost their lives due to the Covid-19.

Then, the secretary and treasurer of the union, Geoconda Arguello-Kline, supports the decision of the governor of Nevada, Steve Sisolak, to extend until May 15 at least the containment measures in his state.

"He does what he can to protect us," said the union leader, AFP. "I know it's difficult for everyone, but it's better than losing your life."

Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman sees confinement as "nonsense" and calls for an immediate reopening of her city, shaken by "an exceptional economic crisis," she said in a statement last week.

- Furnished tables -

Reopening Vegas, its huge hotel complexes and casinos, will necessarily require improvements.

Plexiglas screens could in the future separate players and dealers around the blackjack and roulette tables.

Employees will undoubtedly have to work masked and gloved. And establishments plan to control the temperature of customers.

An option that Emerald Island casino owner Tim Brooks rejects.

"I don't want to take the temperature of every person who walks through our doors, we don't have the medical skills to do it," he said. "It is over 40 ° C in summer. How do you know who really has a fever?"

For local historian David Schwartz, the real question is not when and how casinos will reopen. But "how many tourists can return" as long as the pandemic continues to affect international travel?

"There will be a way to adapt, but I don't know how yet," he admits.

- "Lay off again" -

Even though his Skyline hotel and casino had the green light to reopen, Jim Marsh fears that social distancing measures are "too costly" to put in place.

"We could stay closed if the fees were too high," he said. "You can't make money in a bar where people have to sit more than a meter apart."

Tim Brooks, who says he does not have a lot of room on Emerald Island, says he is "disappointed" and "distraught" at the governor's decision to extend containment in Nevada.

He has already laid off 131 of the 166 employees at his casino, but is now struggling to find enough work for those who still work despite the closure.

"I may have to fire again," he says. "There are not endless railings to polish".

The urgency is even greater among the 350,000 people in Nevada who have applied for unemployment benefits in recent weeks.

This is the case of Bob Aquino, manager of an Emerald Island restaurant, whose wife also lost her job at the local chamber of commerce, along with her health insurance.

Fortunately, the request for an allowance from the sexagenarian was accepted. "Without that, I would be on the street offering my services to be able to eat," he testified. "I would ask the governor to reopen Nevada. To be able to return to work. That's enough now."

© 2020 AFP