Thousands of casino employees can now get vaccines at work
Four major Las Vegas casino companies will be offering on-site COVID-19 vaccinations to their employees — and in at least one case — their families.
Station Casinos said Wednesday it would begin offering vaccinations to its employees and their families next Tuesday, according to a news release.
Las Vegas Sands Corp. also will start immunizing its employees early next week, said Greg Cassell, incident commander for the Southern Nevada Health District’s vaccination rollout.
The expansion of efforts to inoculate members of Nevada’s predominant industry comes as the state prepares to offer vaccinations to anyone 16 or older beginning Monday.
Health district officials urged currently eligible members of the public to get their shots now before the expected long lines of next week.
Station Casinos is partnering with American Medical Response ambulance company to administer vaccine inside its meeting and convention spaces at six of its properties: Palace Station, Sunset Station, Red Rock, Green Valley Ranch, Santa Fe Station and Boulder Station.
“The safety and wellbeing of our team members and their families has been our primary focus throughout the pandemic, and we are thrilled to be able to take this next step of providing vaccines to team members and their families in a fast, safe and convenient manner,” said Bob Finch, chief operating officer of Station Casinos.
Sands Corp., which did not respond to a request for comment, operates The Venetian and Palazzo resorts on the Strip and the Sands Expo and Convention Center.
Cassell said that each casino operator would be allotted 500 to 1,000 doses of vaccine per day.
MGM Resorts on Tuesday began offering 3,500 doses of vaccine per week to its employees at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.
On Thursday, Caesars Entertainment will begin vaccinating as many as 10,000 of its local employees throughout the month of April, according to the company. The partnership with Albertsons supermarkets will span four events, beginning at the Rio.
The on-site vaccine clinics are aimed at improving immunization rates among workers in Nevada’s casino industry.
Local and state health officials agreed last week that almost 28,000 of the county’s 54,850-dose allocation for public vaccination events would be prioritized for the hospitality industry, Nevada Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Shannon Litz wrote in an email Monday.
The state was scheduled to receive 94,540 first doses of vaccine this week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
All told, the state has received more than 1.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine from the federal government.
The Review-Journal is owned by the family of Sheldon Adelson, the late chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp.
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