Analysis of cell phone data has shown that reopening Las Vegas more than two months ago led to a tenfold number of cases in Clark County, Nevada, which may have led to the virus spreading across the country, according to a report by ProPublica.

Las Vegas opened up its casinos and other entertainment venues June 4th.  Within five weeks, the number of COVID-19 cases reported within the Southern Nevada Health District, the local equivalent to a health department, had increased tenfold, by more than 50,000 coronavirus cases.

On June 4th, the state had a little over 9,000 cases; Nevada currently has nearly 62,000 cases, according to the COVID Tracking Project.  Fatalities from coronavirus have more than doubled since the reopening.

The cell phone data, however, is more harrowing.

In a study commissioned by ProPublica, cell phone data tracking firms looked at 26,000 cell phones that were in Las Vegas from one Friday-through-Monday four-day period in mid-July.  The owners of those phones then traveled to 47 of the 48 mainland American states, with the one exception being the state of Maine.

The extensive and widespread travel of visitors to Las Vegas, combined with the outbreak of coronavirus cases within the Clark County area, leads to potential that those travelers could spread the infection to areas where there had been few cases.

The nature of entertainment in Las Vegas also makes contact tracing a meaningless exercise:  tourists rarely know the names and information for people they may come in contact with during their trips.