TEXARKANA, Ark. (KTAL/KMSS) – Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says the state’s three gaming casinos will be allowed to reopen with limited operations starting May 18.
Hutchinson made the announcement during his daily briefing on the state’s response to COVID-19, which he held in Texarkana Thursday. The governor said casinos will be allowed to open at one-third capacity with stringent social distancing requirements in place.
“We’ve all worked worked hard with the industry. They have presented proposals as to how they can socially distance in that environment, they can manage the population there,” said Hutchinson.
Further guidance is expected to be released late Thursday or Friday by the state’s health department.
The governor also said that in order to get to the next phase of reopening, “we need to make sure we don’t have a resurgence” in cases over the next 14 days.
“We’re going to study any spike very carefully. If there’s a spike that we can identify, that we can control it, that we can manage it then that should not detract from our overall objective and direction that we’re going in to phase two and opening up more.”
There are now 3,665 confirmed cases of coronavirus reported in Arkansas as of Thursday, reflecting 97 new cases reported since Wednesday. Three more deaths have been reported, bringing the total to 88.