Las Vegas officials on Tuesday decided against imposing a mask mandate for tourists on the Strip, citing tourism concerns.

The advocacy initiatives they support include preventing people with serious mental illness from buying firearms and cracking down on illegal firearms sales.

Local and state officials are defending a partial mask mandate that appears rooted more in economics than science.

Maureen Schafer, CEO of Nevada Health and Bioscience Corporation (NHBC), and Loay Hanthel, senior construction manager with M.J. Dean Construction, lead a tour of the Medical Education Building (MEB), the first building of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV, under construction at 625 Shadow Lane Wednesday, July 21, 2021.

Courtesy of Nevada Health & Science Corp.

The Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV continues working on construction of its first permanent building.

UNLV’s new medical school building is on track to open in fall 2022.

Construction on UNLV’s new medical education building has reached the halfway point ahead of schedule and below budget and should be ready for occupancy in late June 2022.

A new report released from UNLV's Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) said that Southern Nevada's population of approximately 2.32 million residents is expected to grow about more than 1 million to 3.38 million by 2060.