Not all of Elon Musk’s projects have been thwarted by the coronavirus pandemic. While the billionaire clashed this week with local officials over restarting production at a Tesla Inc. factory in California, his tunnel-drilling company hit a new milestone in Nevada.

Andrea Bensmiller and three bandmates were onstage at the Planet Hollywood resort on the Las Vegas Strip, performing for conventioneers during a big mid-March construction trade show when word came that she and thousands of other musicians, acrobats and entertainers were out of work.

The number of people filing new claims for jobless benefits in Nevada is closing in on 390,000 since casinos and other businesses were shuttered to prevent spread of the coronavirus.

A significant change at the top of Nevada's employment department was announced Tuesday with the director stepping down.

Gov. Steve Sisolak has praised Nevadans for adhering to COVID-19 shutdown directives, but if control measures are reduced too soon, the disease will likely spread beyond control, said Brian Labus, an epidemiology expert at the UNLV School of Public Health.

Gov. Steve Sisolak has praised Nevadans for adhering to COVID-19 shutdown directives, but if control measures are reduced too soon, the disease will likely spread beyond control, said Brian Labus, an epidemiology expert at the UNLV School of Public Health.

Joseph Guerrero is done with the Las Vegas hospitality industry.

A few neon lights at the casinos are still flashing, “open 24 hours”, stands above a closed burger bar. A homeless person sets up in a restaurant entrance for the night. On a pedestrian bridge over the Strip, the legendary entertainment mile in Las Vegas, Cici Ballard - pink hair, tattooed forearms - stands with friends and points to the deserted sidewalks below them, the closed bars, the silhouettes of the hotel towers. "It's kind of scary," she says, pulling her cigarette deeply.

From 2007 to 2009, the Great Recession affected Las Vegas more than anywhere else in the United States. The Las Vegas’s economy will, once again, be dealt a difficult hand as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic, according to Stephen M. Miller, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) and economics professor at UNLV's Lee Business School.

Nevada could have the largest number of unemployed workers in the US due to the coronavirus pandemic. In a state where an estimated one in three workers is employed by the leisure and hospitality industry, 320,000 Nevada workers are at risk, twice the number in the late 2000s, which could push Nevada’s unemployment rate above 30 percent, according to a recent report by Las Vegas-based economic research firm Applied Analysis, reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Casinos with fewer than 500 employees can participate in the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program if their gaming revenue last year was less than $1 million and comprised less than half of business revenue, under new SBA guidance.

With the effective closure of the Strip by the coronavirus pandemic, job losses have soared to record levels in Nevada.