Infectious Disease Expert: Casinos Considered Low To Medium Risk For Coronavirus Exposure
LINCOLN (CBS13) — There are a lot of handles, buttons, and tables to touch if you're going to gamble at Thunder Valley Casino.
It's why Kioko Martins has her own stash of hand sanitizer and keeps a mask with her.
"I'm ready to go and it's been a long time I haven't been out here," she said.
Dwayne West Jr. keeps his hands away from his face, hat, and mask.
"Just make sure I'm sanitizing and watching what surfaces I touch," he said.
But even with safety protocols like thermal temperature checks, masks, and hand sanitizer over at Colusa Casino, gamblers are being warned about possible exposure just days after it reopened.
With more casinos reopening in the area, we wanted to know if it's too soon. We turned to Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, professor of medicine and infectious disease expert at UCLA. He says exposures are more likely to occur indoors and when it comes to casinos specifically they are considered low to medium risk.
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"I don't think it's too soon. I think we need California to be back to work and back to school and back to play. The original purpose of shutting down the state was to save the hospitals, the hospitals were saved," said Dr. Klaunser.
Dr. Klausner says cleaning high-touch surfaces inside casinos is effective and an important way to reduce the further risk of spread. Thunder Valley says a special maintenance team works to disinfect and sanitizing is also done by dealers and team members after every use.
"You're going to have somebody that it there wiping the slots machines wiping the table games down," said Doug Elmets with Thunder Valley Casino.
For the most part, gamblers aren't too worried.
"More hand sanitizer, more people be aware of each other," Martins said.
"I think if everybody pays attention to doing what is necessary, you know everybody will be clean there won't be the spread of the virus or anything like that," said Daryl Zafferano.
