Las Vegas dices with Delta as the casinos roar back to life

Las Vegas dices with Delta as the casinos roar back to life

Sign up to myFT Daily Digest to be the first to know about Las Vegas news.

Whether for the Elvis Presley years or the heyday of 80s glam rock, Las Vegas has always unashamedly trafficked in nostalgia.

Right now the city yearns most for the days of 2019 — a time before the coronavirus pandemic plunged it into the most acute crisis in its 116-year history.

On Fremont Street, the historical centre of Las Vega’s golden era, you would think Covid-19 had never happened. A couple of hundred people huddle around a live music stage as a passable Bon Jovi cover blares out.

At the front, Felicity Shoars, 21, cools herself with a fan bearing the words “F*ck it” — her attitude, she says, to the pandemic.

“The fun is worth the risk. We’re here for a good time.”

Around a bar inside the iconic Golden Nugget, there is a similar determination to get back to normal. But there is also evidence of America’s lopsided response to tackling Covid-19 and the divisions that have allowed the Delta variant to take hold.

Christina and Kevin Engel, both 51 and from Baltimore, are here to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary though technically now it is their 26th after having