The four Navajo Nation casinos in Arizona and New Mexico will remain closed until the end of August, although the nation has made great strides in controlling Covid-19.
Navajo Nation Gaming Chairman Quincy Natay made the announcement August 10, saying, “As the first tribal casino to close on March 17th, and possibly the last to reopen, Navajo Nation Gaming will offer ‘best-in-class’ safety measures and a ‘trusted-space’ environment for our patrons and team members when it is safe to reopen.”
The casino closures has forced 88 percent of tribal employees to be laid off temporarily. The announcement comes as the Navajo Nation has experienced two months of coronavirus cases, and has said businesses could begin reopening August 17, most of them at 25 percent capacity.
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said in a release “Through contact tracing, we are learning more about the movement of the virus and we know that the fight is not over, but we have to find new ways to move forward.”
He called for reopening “slowly and cautiously” observing that when some states began reopening in May that they experienced the reemergence of the disease.
The nation was at one time among the hardest hit communities by Covid-19. It has had 478 known deaths from the disease.
