Leading Las Vegas

Welcome to this episode of leading Las Vegas focused on the response by the state of Nevada to COVID-19. In this episode, you will hear about how leaders in our state connected the governor's office and how the National Guard responded to the challenges presented by COVID-19.

I'm Sky downfield. And I'm Trey Curtis Brown. And we will be hearing about the Nevada State response from the perspective of Colonel Justin galley from the Nevada National Guard and Kayla cage, the state of Nevada COVID-19 response director,

Nevada State heavily dependent on tourism and industry that was hit hard by COVID-19. As travel restrictions were put in place and resorts were closed down in the initial response to this pandemic. Many industries were affected Nevada and Las Vegas specifically has one of the highest rates of unemployment that is linked to tourism in the country. This pandemic essentially shut down tourism and travel for an extended period of time and this had major economic ramifications for the state and resulted in people losing their jobs. The reliance of Nevada's economy on tourism made this pandemic even more devastating, as the actions that the state had to take to keep people protected from this deadly virus consequently devastated the state economy. Because of the potential devastating impact of COVID 19. On Nevada, it was important to have a strong coordinated effort at the state level, Colonel Ghali and Mr. Cage played a critical role in the coordinated response.

Colonel Justin Gali has an extensive military career and has worked in the Air Force for over 20 years. He was instrumental in shaping the 200 and 32nd operation squadron into an elite fighter squadron that helps support many Nevada advanced operational tests. Mr. Gali has also served as the director of operations for the Nevada Air National Guard and recently held a position in Governor Steve sisolak office during the Nevada COVID-19 response as a liaison with the Nevada guard. Currently, Lieutenant Colonel galley is attending the national security Fellows program run by Harvard University. We are excited to learn from Lieutenant Colonel galleys unique wealth of experiences in both the public and military sectors.

We are also privileged to speak with Mr. Caleb cage Mr. Cage, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point was served as the artillery officer for five years before beginning his impressive career in emergency management and public safety. Among his many accomplishments, he worked in the Lieutenant Governor's and governor's offices and led the Nevada Department of Public Safety's division of emergency management and homeland security. He has also led the office of Veterans Services along with serving as the Nevada System of Higher Education, Associate Vice Chancellor for workforce development before returning to the Nevada System of Higher Education, Mr. Cage served as the state of Nevada as COVID-19 response director.

When COVID hit, it was all hands on deck to try to figure out how to respond to the global pandemic. In Nevada, many state agencies participated in the response, including the division of public behavior and health, Division of Emergency Management, Nevada Department of military as well as the National Guard who work together to protect the people of Nevada,

Caleb cage and Colonel Justin Gali, were two men on the front lines of the COVID response in Nevada. In this episode of leading Las Vegas, we will be able to gain an understanding of what went well in regards to response to this pandemic and what did not.

Our guests will talk about the importance of factors such as innovation and leadership and managing the response to COVID 19.

One pressing question we had was whether Nevada was ready for a crisis of this nature and magnitude.

Today, we were curious about the agency worked for during the response. And if you felt it was prepared for the pandemic and why or why not. I had left

emergency management about nine months before the pandemic, to come over to the system of higher education the first time. And when the pandemic hits in February or March, March of 2020. Shortly thereafter, they asked me to come back and help coordinate and assist. And I don't think that was a statement of them not being ready. I just think that emergency management and public health preparedness organizations around the country to include national at the federal level, we're not prepared for the magnitude and the duration of this. I'll give you an example. When I first started as the emergency manager for the state back in 2015. The very first exercise that I participated in, was called Operation rabbit's foot. It was a federal require federally required exercise that that went through a flu pandemic scenario, and that required public health preparedness to go from identifying the virus presence to putting out a vaccine distributing the vaccine through pods or points of distribution. And that whole exercise was about three days long. And I'm not criticizing that the preparedness effort. But this obviously has gone on for a year and a half now. We're almost two years now. And so even the preparedness efforts that were in place at the time were, were just inadequate because of the magnitude and the scale of of this emergency.

Colonel galley felt that while it was difficult to fully prepare for something quite like this, the National Guard was prepared to assist in a crisis of this nature.

Jeez, how do you prepare for something like this right, for a global pandemic? I think there's lots of books written about it. Lots of people have talked about it, but how do you get how do you get a full scale whole of government, you know, prepared response to this, unfortunately, for our small state and our smaller government that didn't, you know, preparedness was was difficult, right. And there's multiple reasons for that. But what was what's interesting about the military in general, and especially the National Guard, as you know, we're citizen soldiers and airmen who are your homeland, defense, the homeland we respond to crisis, all the time, you see, guardsman at fires and floods. Probably if you were in Las Vegas over in New Year's you probably saw saw guardsmen at the airport. You know, we respond when our nation needs us.

In terms of preparation of leading up to the pandemic, both Colonel Justin Gali and Kayla cage noted that no one was fully prepared for COVID the pandemic was on a scale that surpassed all forms of training because of the magnitude and deadlines of the virus. As Mr. Cage mentioned, there was some level of preparation for an event of this nature, such as Operation rabbit's foot, which was a federally required program that played out a pandemic like scenario. However, these limited training exercises were not even close to beginning to being extensive or large enough to prepare for professionals for a problem that COVID-19 presented. Colonel Gali also touches on why the National Guard was called in to help the state government and its agencies with the pandemic and explains the extraordinary collaboration that took place amongst agencies to respond to this unprecedented crisis. Can you walk us through your agency's like, initial COVID response and then how protocols have changed over time.

So when I joined back with the governor's office in in March, April of 2020, that was really the beginning. I think the first case was identified in the Senate and battered around March 6, and we were beginning to see our first surge or the beginnings of the first surge in cases starting in April, May. And, you know, at first it was, how do we put the infrastructure in place that we need in order to be prepared for the long term? How do we how do we build testing capacity right now the Nevada State public health lab, the Southern Nevada public health lab, private sector partners, in early 2020, were capable of meeting the demands of a non pandemic environment, right doing all kinds of testing for community health and population health in their areas, but clearly not to scale up to the level that they needed to in order to meet the demands of this pandemic, which was 1000s of tests a week that they needed to process. And so again, no criticism of them. It's that it's that the organization was prepared for its steady state operations went out when an extraordinary situation hit. So we spent the first I'd say, two or three months really building up that scaling up that initial capacity making sure we had testing capability and making sure we were thinking about testing right testing is samples specimen collection, which is actually doing the drive thru where you're driving into a place somebody was sticking a swab up your nose and and then actually having that tested. And then for the positive cases, going to contact tracing, making sure we had the PPE necessary in the state making sure we had hospital capacity that really was our our very first

step. Colonel galley also discusses the National Guard's initial response.

You know, it was March of 2020. I think it was right around the first week of March was when the first case happened in Nevada, about mid March was when the governor declared state emergency directives. The President had declared his shortly thereafter. And then shortly then we did the state home right after that, right. And we all know the rest of the story that you know, strip was shut down and everywhere you guys weren't you guys weren't in classes. Everybody's trying to figure out zoom. Everybody's trying to figure out how do we how do we work from home? I mean, at that point, I mean, nobody really knew information. I mean, we were still having meetings without masks on, you know, the epidemiologists. We're all trying to get to gather, gather information. So I think when it came to the inclusion of the guard in this response, it was really a great Call by the Chief of Staff Michelle white, the governor's senior adviser Scott Gillis, and the governor to look at our organization, the Nevada Department of the military, the National Guard as as, hey, wait, these men and women kind of do this? I know it's not necessarily at this at this level. But how do we get a small, really kind of not funded great state government together to respond to this, and that immediately included the guard under the direction of Major General berry with the inclusion then which was really at the time was was unprecedented of, of moving state government underneath the guard. So you had the Division of Public and behavioral health, which moved underneath the guard at that point, and you also had the Division of Emergency Management. So both of those were in their own departments outside of the department of the military, one was in Health and Human Services, and one was in public safety, in order to facilitate a better response and gathering of information. At the end of the day, our entire goal was to getting the governor and and his office, the best information that you had, so that they could produce informed, informed decisions.

The initial response in the state of Nevada was categorized by the shutdown of the strip and isolation and quarantine coupled with limited information, the governor had to act quickly and take some course of action as information was unclear and limited. The true extent of the threat was not fully known. It was apparent that resources were lacking and agencies were going to have to communicate and work together to combat the pandemic, there was the division of public health and emergency management and bringing in the National Guard to assist state agencies. There was many questions to be answered initially, and not much information. As health experts and emergency and crisis management leaders began working together, they started to prioritize the response. The first step was to deal with how to test people and enable contact tracing, when a test came back positive,

the additional response in the state of Nevada was in many ways positive, given the amount of information that was available at the time, there were often situations or decisions in regards to responses to this pandemic, where there were no good choices, it was really a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils in many cases and making decisions that would have, above all else kept people safe, even if they were the unpopular decision.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. And I'm going to spend a lot more time in the years ahead thinking about this, because it was such a profound part of my life. I think that we, in the governor's office, gave the governor the best options for a really bad set of decisions that he had to make, there was there was no, there was no good decision, there was no safe decision at the end of the day, for any of these issues. You know, we sent throughout, we're trying to balance livelihoods and lives, those are two really important things people's ability to earn a living and people's lives. And understanding that even in those that stark contrast, it wasn't that simple. It was also more complex than people's livelihoods in people's lives. Because the more mitigation measures we put in place, the more challenges we saw in the economy, which meant the more revenue, the less revenue, we received, the state which meant the more state services struggle, and, and so on and so on down the line. So being able to keep coming back and saying, what is the what is the best decision out of this, this list of bad decisions that we have to make right here? And what's our recommendation from that? I'm really proud of the decisions that we've made. And think that for the most part, you know, at the highest level, throughout the entire process, we made the best possible decisions, or the governor made the best possible decisions that he could, and probably save some lives. In the process. I think that we learned from what we did not do as well. And here's an example I've used often that is at the very beginning, out of necessity, the decisions were made by the governor. And they were they were announced to our county and state partners. And they just had to be it just had to be that done that way. Trey, you mentioned shutting down the Las Vegas Strip. It just had to be done. These things had to be done quickly, in order to stop the spread of the virus. Of course, our local partners, county partners, city partners and tribal partners and others came back and said, you know, we'd like to be a part of those conversations we'd like to have our voice heard in those decisions going forward. And I think each iteration of the plan and implementation of those plans going forward. We got more and more and more inclusive all the way up to August when we developed our task force We actually had the counties at the table with us, we talked about our decisions and the challenges we were facing. We base everything off of data points. And we made those those decisions in a public venue. And I think were the earliest decisions were made quickly by the governor out of necessity. Over time, we were able to do more collaboratively, because we knew that this was going to be lasting longer. You know, and I think implied in that is one of the things like I said earlier that I wish I would have been able to do better and that is, work with work with our local partners in ways that we've been able to, through the trust that we've been able to establish previously. I think that was a challenge. You know, there there 100, logistical things that I think throughout the process, we could have done better. But for the most part, I think really standing up the standing up the framework that we did for logistics coordination, allowed us to be able to modify that over time and adapt as the situation changed.

Mr. Cage laid out for us the debate between lives and livelihoods, certain people thought that their livelihoods were unjustly affected by the mitigating measures enacted because of the virus, while others felt that we must protect lives at any cost. This only added to the politicization of this pandemic, which hindered not only Nevada's response to the pandemic, but the entire countries. It also made decisions more complex because with most situations, no matter what decision was made, many people would be upset. The politicization of this issue and lack of information in regards to this pandemic, along with communication amongst agencies operating in different jurisdictions, during normal day to day operations were some of the largest roadblocks and an effective response, both Colonel galley and Mr. Cage touched on these issues as some of the biggest hindrances in their response.

We have challenges with our federal partners, we have challenges in local relationships. I think if he asked our local partners, they'd say they had some challenges with us as well. An awful lot of that, in my opinion, came down to the hyper politicization of this, this pandemic, which is really unfortunate, and was unnecessary. And we paid a price throughout the entire pandemic for for that politicization. And I've said in other interviews, and I'll continue to say that one of the things that I wish I had done better was working with local partnerships and building that up, building up the trust that was necessary in order to, to respond to coordinate a response, every other case, we found ourselves to be undermined, we found ourselves to be contradicted by the federal government or working within constraints that were just too difficult to manage or that the lack of decisions key decisions made it even more difficult for us to manage this at the state level. So the whole situation and I think, mostly due to politicization, as I said earlier, was extremely challenging. From a coordination perspective. I think we were able to work better and better with our local partners throughout, even with some of the challenges from early on. But we really never got that on the same page as the federal government until the administration change occurred in January of this year.

I don't know if there was any, like deliberate difficulty. I think that, you know, that the way that our state government does it on a, on a sunny day, as I call it, it, there's there's parts of our government that doesn't talk to each other. Right. The the, the National Guard doesn't really, that hadn't before really had too much interaction with the Division of Public debate behavior, healthy DM we did had a really good relationship. In fact, we share, share a building with DM, but but with with some of these other parts of government, we, those those avenues for engagement work didn't exist, we had to create them. So although not intentional, I think at the beginning shirt, it was difficult, right? And then as you step into any, in anything with limited information, right, and a lot of you know, stuff flying all over social media. I mean, do you guys see some of that? I mean, some of that stuff was remarkable. Right? And that that's that didn't help.

One major lesson that came out of this pandemic was the importance of agencies at federal, state and local levels to communicate and coordinate with one another. Coordination between agencies created some challenges initially, but the coordination turned out to be quite effective.

The goal of many of these coordinating agencies such as the one Colonel galley and Mr. Cage were a part of was the pooling of their resources to give the governor the most accurate and up to date information to make strong decisions for the state of Nevada. This encompassed the inclusion of the National Guard in the COVID-19 response in Nevada, which Colonel Justin galley touched on when asked what his job in relationship to the governor's office was when

it came to the inclusion of the guard in this, in this response, it was really a great call by the Chief of Staff, Michelle white, the governor's senior adviser Scott Gillis, and the governor to look at our organization, the Nevada Department of the military, the National Guard as as, hey, wait, these, these men and women kind of do this? I know, it's not necessarily at this at this level. But how do we get a small, really kind of not funded great state government together to respond to this, and that immediately included the guard under the direction of Major General Berry, with the inclusion then which was really at the time was was unprecedented of, of moving state government underneath the guard. So the Division of Public and behavioral health, which moved underneath the guard at that point, and you also had the Division of Emergency Management. So both of those were in their own departments outside of the department of the military, one was in Health and Human Services, and one was in public safety, in order to facilitate a better response and gathering of information in which, at the end of the day, our entire goal was to getting the governor and and his office, the best information that you had, so that they could produce informed, informed decisions. And then the follow up to that what we did was ensured that those decisions that were made by that decision maker, the governor, were implemented in in a, in a manner that's consistent with decision makers decision. Does that make sense? And so So all right, we're gonna provide you informed information as we know it, right, which was limited. At the beginning, it got better. And then, okay, how do we make sure that your decisions were implemented with that, with that intent? And so there were some things that generated outside of that, but I think that that call to bring those organizations together, you know, the Publican, baby or health who deals with medical, pandemic public health issues, which this was Division of Emergency Management, who knows those really those streams of resourcing, and flows of money, especially with the federal government, they've got those great relationships, and then the operation planning, operational planning and skill sets of the Army and the Air Force, which was, which was us, and how do we bring those things all together so that we could provide a product to the governor, his senior, his senior advisors, that, that that was informed and it helped residents in our most vulnerable communities. This

pandemic and the immense demands that created lead to innovation in many fields. In this case, it was the restructuring of the state agencies within Nevada and the state government, perhaps the largest innovation that took place in this pandemic was the creation of a vaccine, Mr. Cage discussed with us the government's action in making the vaccine of reality as efficiently as possible.

You know, the operation warp speed was the the effort to bring about the vaccine. And it was extraordinary. In my opinion, that was an example of government going in and breaking down the bureaucratic barriers necessary in order to expedite a scientific process and to do so in a way that people would still maintain faith in the outcome, which was the critical outcome being the vaccine. That was one example, one that I think was really, really well done,

the federal and state government cut the red tape and fast track the development of the vaccine. This process was of utmost importance because of the high mortality rate of COVID-19. Although the fast tracking of the vaccine was the most obvious example of innovation that came out of the pandemic, there were many examples that happened on a smaller scale at the local or state levels. Caleb cage gave us some great firsthand examples of leaders stepping up in innovating the COVID response on the front lines

I was in I was responsible for the overall coordination effort. And so I can I can say that almost no innovation came from me, but all of the really important innovation came from organizations that we were coordinating with some, for example, Mark Pindari, the state director of the state public health lab, you know, early on when when we had to get tests and we needed test kits, obviously, there were tests that were being being developed in, in places around the world, but we needed the actual kids to collect them. And so that was a swab. That was a viral transport medium and a file is based simply what it came down to. And Dr. Van Dory said, Well, we're going to, we're going to work on 3d printing these swabs, we're going to build out new machines and new areas. So that we can go from doing a couple of 100 tests running a couple 100 tests a day, to running 1500 tests a day, the innovation that came out of his lab was extraordinary. You know, we partnered with the Nevada System of Higher Education in Nevada State College use their lab to create the viral transport medium. So that vial of saline or other VTM, you know, these labs pick that up on their own responsibility. We bought the supplies they got together in their labs and just did it not, not necessarily in innovation, per se, but a partnership that was critical. Amber Donnelly, who's the Dean of Nursing for Great Basin college out in Elko, built a contact tracing program, using staff and students out in Elko that really became the model for the entire state, which was, which was remarkable, and a pretty impressive feat to stand up so early on. And there were just so many innovations that came from necessity associated with this. I think, when we were going through the policy proposals, there was a group of tavern owners, bar owners in Reno, who got together, and I don't remember the name of the organization, but they got they got together, I think there were 32 of them. And they all agreed to participate in certain specific standards for reopening and policing, one another among, you know, self policing, so that they could reopen, which was an interesting policy concept to consider. So there were there all kinds of things. To to that come to mind. Some of our rural communities are continuing to but but started early testing wastewater in their community to to determine where COVID-19 was happening, and what if what the measure of it was in their community, which was pretty impressive. And then by, by far, the biggest innovation that come out of all of this was the vaccine research in my opinion that that I think was pretty transformational and continues to be the best tool that we have as as a nation, but really around the world for fighting that fight virus.

Many of these innovations had huge positive impact from local and state COVID-19 response the primary came from people who were stepping up to do their part and leading whether or not they were in a leadership role. The development of 3d printable swabs was a major development that drastically elevated testing capabilities and outside the box solution to the testing problem that incorporated new technology. The contact tracing model was pivotal to containing and pinpointing cases. This innovation gave us the tool to alert people when they had been in contact with someone who had contracted the virus and helped people from spreading the pathogen unknowingly.

Colonel galley also addressed how innovation was a huge part of many of the positive responses that took place.

It's happening from the boots, the boots on ground, folks, what's happening a Cashman. I don't know if you if you all happen to visit Cashman. That was a major hub for the community in Las Vegas for testing later vaccines. And so we had some incredible folks on the ground. There was an Army Sergeant John Hus, who there was a Facebook page that popped up called the Las Vegas vaccine hunters. And he was a sergeant that stood out in the parking lot and kind of directed people where to go, right, because it was a lot, a lot happening. And he had noticed that during the vaccine portion of the response, that there were there were groups that were showing up, maybe that weren't in line with the with the vaccine distribution criteria. So if you remember, we had some the most vulnerable populations, the elderly population first, and then worked it down to the healthy, you know, to the healthy populations. You know, we let the first responders get there, get there as the grocery store workers, those get their vaccines first in a priority? Well, what we found was that the vaccine that it once once it was tapped for lack of a better term, and out out of a cold storage, it only had about a 12 If I remember correctly, six to 12 hour life at room temperature. And so at the end of the day, you would have potentially some some vaccine left. And it was the end of the day and there wasn't anyone, anyone there to distribute it. There's there was a group that had formed and was paying attention to this and they were going to they were showing up and saying hey, did you guys have leftovers? Can I get a shot? And they might not have been in the hierarchy? Well, John has it bad basically set up a waitlist at Cashman and then organize that waitlist. So people would show up at 730 in the morning and organize this waitlist, you'd have them come back about 333 15 In the afternoon, and he would have this organized waitlist. And he didn't know if there was going to be one shot, to give or 20 shots to give. But if you want a one shot show back up here and and we don't want any of this to go to waste. And so that was I thought was was incredible. And that's a sergeant who's out there just helping folks to get to their appointments to get into Cashman. And, and he created this he was he was a kind of a big deal on the news for a little while there. It was, it was it was fascinating to watch that to watch that occur and watch that develop at the lowest at the lowest level. He didn't need a general to tell him to do that, which was remarkable. And then others we the other story that was was an Army Sergeant long Meyer, who was part of our mobile testing team, so getting out into the rural communities to tribal communities, you know, that that in itself, it's almost there. So, so far away that that, you know, he knew that it was just his team. And so some of the decision making that that was made by his small team was was absolutely incredible in the information sharing that came back was was was huge. And he went out on his own and learned Paiute Shoshone welcome greetings, just so as he stepped into the into the tribal nations that they knew that that we were here to help and to help answer their questions, and he didn't have anybody you know overtop of him, telling him to do that he he did that. So I think you'll find stories like that. There's probably 10 others maybe more. I bet you there's more and that of those but I thought that those were absolutely absolutely fascinating it Eddie at a lower and scratch roots human to human interaction, which was I thought was remarkable.

The Kashman example certainly stands out. It showed how change can be made on the lowest level simply by someone being observant and carrying the desire to go above and beyond is leadership. John Hus was a sergeant who is essentially tasked with keeping people in line and making sure they knew where to go and with the proper forms and identification. He was observant and notice a problem and came up with an innovative solution that allowed the vaccine unit at Cashman to use all of the vaccines they were allocated for each day. His innovation was resourceful and ensured that the precious vaccines that could save lives each day, were not going to waste.

Finally, we couldn't talk about a crisis of such epic and unprecedented proportions without mentioning the specific examples of leadership at the state level. Many workers responsible for the COVID response worked during a time of increased stress and uncertainty, as we would soon learn, there were some changes leadership had to enact in terms of how the state operated.

Sure, I think I think the things that went well was the forming and the adjustments within state government that I've mentioned previously, between the guard Diem and DVB. H, that we we did form into a group that was that was pretty resilient. And that made some significant, significant impacts. I think that to that point, I think that we had great support from our community leaders and legislative leaders. And we find we saw that throughout the throughout that lat the last legislative session, that even to a point where they supported the governor's, one of the governor's bills that the legislature was in full supportive was actually moving the division of imagine of Emergency Management formally underneath the National Guard. And so now that that agency moved from public safety, which is a law enforcement, investigative focused organization, more under the guard, which is which will now it's a team that's a little more broad based emergency response and understand the operations and the resources and the resources. So that I think all is a product of that when it went very well. I think that that putting that team together and coming up with that battle rhythm that we that we had talked about earlier to producing this product called the governor's update brief the Gup which provided those informed decisions, I think was was was absolutely necessary. And and I think that really also and I got it, I really do have to hand it to the governor, the governor put together a team that was pretty, pretty good. I think history will show that I mean, his is senior advisors is chief of staff, our Adjutant General COVID, response director or Director of Emergency Management. We're all just incredible professionals that just that just gave their entire heart to the to the state.

The COVID 19 pandemic has had a devastating The impact on Nevada in terms of economic factors, day to day activities, and most importantly, lives lost the state of Nevada and the country as a whole. Were not fully prepared for the magnitude of COVID-19. However, this like many crisis's creates opportunities for growth and improvement. Some of the positive actions that were learned about were the restructuring of agency jobs within the state as well as the inclusion of the National Guard and the response efforts. A challenge

of the pandemic especially initially was the need to often make decisions in the face of great uncertainty. This was especially problematic right when the pandemic hit and information was scarce. The collaboration amongst agencies was pivotal to providing the governor with up to date and accurate information so he can make informed decisions on how to best protect the people of Nevada.

The politicization of this pandemic and the communication efforts on the part of federal agencies, particularly in DC were some of the major issues that hindered response and cohesiveness with the state and local government in Nevada. Despite these obstacles, there were many positive actions taken to stop the spread of this virus.

Some of the steps were quite public, such as the development of the vaccine on the national level. However, many of these positive actions and innovations came from people at lower levels stepping up and leading this fight from the frontlines. There undoubtedly are stories just like the ones we have heard today that occurred in each state and the people behind them deserve recognition for the role and innovations they provided to help save lives.

Relatedly there are many lessons to learn from the COVID response here in Nevada. Certainly, there were missteps. But by and large, these negatives are outweighed by the massive efforts of many professionals to innovate in terms of technology, infrastructure, and leadership. These innovations which came out of the necessity due to the unprecedented nature of this pandemic, are a prime example of the state of Nevada and its people coming together and fighting back against this deadly virus to keep the people of Nevada safe.

We would like to once again thank Colonel Justin Ghali and Mr. Caleb Cade for their leadership efforts, which greatly benefited the citizens of Nevada during the COVID 19 pandemic. This episode was produced by Daniel Barnes, Trey Curtis Brown sky Donenfeld, Payton Fuller and tabi to autopsy audio editing was provided by Kevin Kroll. Additional episodes exploring the impact of COVID-19 as well as many other topics related to emergency and crisis management on leading Las Vegas, a podcast produced by the emergency and crisis management program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.