Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[correcaminos]

I need to get into town next week near the major hospital. Instead of driving myself I’m thinking I could hurt myself and call an ambulance since it’ll take me to the same place.

Careful you could be diverted to a totally different hospital and end up in the wrong place.

 

[Jrb1979]

Yes. That's why they are having issues. You can't say they are unvaccinated so the blame must be lax masking because every COVID case must be the result of somebody not "doing the right thing."

It's time to accept and come to terms with the fact that it is a highly transmissible respiratory virus, even moreso with Omicron. The is nothing that will drastically slow the spread during an outbreak short of not having humans in close contact with each other at all.

Get vaccinated and boosted so that you minimize your risk of a serious outcome from COVID and get on with your life. Either that or stay home in quarantine and make sure your entire household does the same because that's the only way that your risk of infection will be near zero (this may not even be true in an apartment, condo or townhouse that shares walls).

Tell that to the Ontario government. Starting Sunday all businesses have to go 50% capacity. All arenas and stadiums can no longer sell food and drink. Groups are limited to 10 indoors and 25 outdoors.

 

[Heppenheimer]

Also early treatment is tremendously important in prevention of severe illness and I don't think that's preached enough.

We have discussed the importance of the monoclonal antibody cocktail here quite a bit, but for some reason, this doesn't seem to be nearly as controversial, despite also being relatively new, and far having less data on outcomes and safety than the vaccines at this point.

The monoclonal antibody cocktail, though, is no substitute for widespread vaccination. Prevention is always better than treatment, right? Plus, vaccination is cheap, effective and can be easily administered on a huge scale. The monoclonal antibody infusion, by contrast, is very expensive, and requires time and skilled nursing to administer, two things that aren't exactly in abundant supply right now, thanks to all the vaccine refuseniks ending up in hospitals.

 

[lazyboy97o]

We have discussed the importance of the monoclonal antibody cocktail here quite a bit, but for some reason, this doesn't seem to be nearly as controversial, despite also being relatively new, and far having less data on outcomes and safety than the vaccines at this point.

The monoclonal antibody cocktail, though, is no substitute for widespread vaccination. Prevention is always better than treatment, right? Plus, vaccination is cheap, effective and can be easily administered on a huge scale. The monoclonal antibody infusion, by contrast, is very expensive, and requires time and skilled nursing to administer, two things that aren't exactly in abundant supply right now, thanks to all the vaccine refuseniks ending up in hospitals.

I’m guessing some untested, self administered “treatments” are included that approach to “prevention”.

 

[Touchdown]

We have discussed the importance of the monoclonal antibody cocktail here quite a bit, but for some reason, this doesn't seem to be nearly as controversial, despite also being relatively new, and far having less data on outcomes and safety than the vaccines at this point.

The monoclonal antibody cocktail, though, is no substitute for widespread vaccination. Prevention is always better than treatment, right? Plus, vaccination is cheap, effective and can be easily administered on a huge scale. The monoclonal antibody infusion, by contrast, is very expensive, and requires time and skilled nursing to administer, two things that aren't exactly in abundant supply right now, thanks to all the vaccine refuseniks ending up in hospitals.

There is also early evidence it will not be effective against omicron.

 

[mkt]

UF has put out a new Covid projection model for Florida including Omicron https://epi.ufl.edu/covid-19-resour...lorida-covid-19-omicron-wave-projections.html Similar to the delta one that turned out to be quite accurate until Omicron hit. Difference here is case peak is higher than any other wave and is expected in February, although deaths are projected lower than any other wave. The only caveat is the peak may wind up weeks sooner than this indicates based on recent South African data.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article256682942.html

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Or you could take the middle ground, get vaccinated and boosted, wear a mask, try to stay out of crowded environments, stay away from others if you are sick, etc, so we don't end up with a huge number of people getting sick in a short amount of time which can cause lots of problems for everyone.

Solid advice from a health care point of view but the highlighted has disastrous consequences from an economic point of view. The vaccinations have provided a way to move on and live our lives again in a way that benefits both our health care system and the economy, we just need to figure out a way to get the holdouts on board before either collapses.

We can’t avoid businesses forever or there’ll be nothing to go back to when (if) Covid finally goes away.

 

[DisneyCane]

Tell that to the Ontario government. Starting Sunday all businesses have to go 50% capacity. All arenas and stadiums can no longer sell food and drink. Groups are limited to 10 indoors and 25 outdoors.

We shall see what that does. Wasn't there already a mask mandate and vaccine passports?

I think the most effective measure will be stopping the sale if alcohol after 10pm because it is well established that COVID spreads like crazy starting at 10:01 pm.

 

[JoeCamel]

we just need to figure out a way to get the holdouts on board before either collapses.

This has been the balancing act for more than a year

 

[DisneyCane]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article256682942.html

At the risk of being called an anti-vaxxer (which I'm not), I thought a Miami Herald article would be a good thing to respond to in order to point out that Miami-Dade County, which has the highest vaccination rate in FL (91% eligible and 85% of the population with at least one shot) had the highest case rate in the last week (400+ per 100k) by a substantial margin. As pointed out earlier in the thread a lot of people mask up in Miami-Dade as well. The next door neighbor in Broward has the 2nd highest vaccination rate (80% eligible), has a lot of maskers and had the 2nd highest case rate (262 per 100k by memory).

The high vaccination rate will likely keep a lot of people out of the hospital or out of the ground but does not appear to be drastically slowing the spread of Omicron.

 

[Touchdown]

At the risk of being called an anti-vaxxer (which I'm not), I thought a Miami Herald article would be a good thing to respond to in order to point out that Miami-Dade County, which has the highest vaccination rate in FL (91% eligible and 85% of the population with at least one shot) had the highest case rate in the last week (400+ per 100k) by a substantial margin. As pointed out earlier in the thread a lot of people mask up in Miami-Dade as well. The next door neighbor in Broward has the 2nd highest vaccination rate (80% eligible), has a lot of maskers and had the 2nd highest case rate (262 per 100k by memory).

The high vaccination rate will likely keep a lot of people out of the hospital or out of the ground but does not appear to be drastically slowing the spread of Omicron.

You can’t really say that until a city that is not highly vaccinated gets hit with omicron. This is a highly, highly, infectious virus. You can’t compare it to past waves.

 

[DisneyCane]

You can’t really say that until a city that is not highly vaccinated gets hit with omicron. This is a highly, highly, infectious virus. You can’t compare it to past waves.

The way that it is spreading, we'll have that comparison within a week

 

[Touchdown]

The way that it is spreading, we'll have that comparison within a week

Yup

 

[mkt]

At the risk of being called an anti-vaxxer (which I'm not), I thought a Miami Herald article would be a good thing to respond to in order to point out that Miami-Dade County, which has the highest vaccination rate in FL (91% eligible and 85% of the population with at least one shot) had the highest case rate in the last week (400+ per 100k) by a substantial margin. As pointed out earlier in the thread a lot of people mask up in Miami-Dade as well. The next door neighbor in Broward has the 2nd highest vaccination rate (80% eligible), has a lot of maskers and had the 2nd highest case rate (262 per 100k by memory).

The high vaccination rate will likely keep a lot of people out of the hospital or out of the ground but does not appear to be drastically slowing the spread of Omicron.

I won't doubt that they are high, I don't believe they're as high as reported for these two counties, owing to the large amount of foreign nationals, mostly from Latin America and the Caribbean, who are flying into MIA and FLL to get vaccinated and used their hotel's address.

 

[DisneyCane]

I won't doubt that they are high, I don't believe they're as high as reported for these two counties, owing to the large amount of foreign nationals, mostly from Latin America and the Caribbean, who are flying into MIA and FLL to get vaccinated and used their hotel's address.

There is probably some level of that. I don't know if it is enough to change the percentage drastically as those counties have been very high even when there were a lot of travel bans in place.

 

[mkt]

There is probably some level of that. I don't know if it is enough to change the percentage drastically as those counties have been very high even when there were a lot of travel bans in place.

There's no official reporting, but based from my anecdotal experience having been to countless pharmacies in the Miami area during my wife's pregnancy, and the sheer volume of antimaskers/antivaxxers in the western parts of Miami-Dade County, I'd say it's sizable.

 

[DisneyCane]

There's no official reporting, but based from my anecdotal experience having been to countless pharmacies in the Miami area during my wife's pregnancy, and the sheer volume of antimaskers/antivaxxers in the western parts of Miami-Dade County, I'd say it's sizable.

I don't know if they can really figure it out. In order not to discourage vaccination, a person just had to give an address in FL. Even the evil people in FL didn't want to discourage undocumented residents from getting a potentially life saving vaccine.

 

[mkt]

I don't know if they can really figure it out. In order not to discourage vaccination, a person just had to give an address in FL. Even the evil people in FL didn't want to discourage undocumented residents from getting a potentially life saving vaccine.

These aren't even residents - they're tourists. I can overhear the conversations in Spanish and French asking what address they should used, talking about their flights home, etc.

 

[DisneyCane]

These aren't even residents - they're tourists. I can overhear the conversations in Spanish and French asking what address they should used, talking about their flights home, etc.

The reason they were able to do that is because the powers that be didn't want to discourage vaccination by requiring ID or utility bills after the initial phase when there was very limited supply.

 

[DisneyFan32]

MSN

(Reuters) -Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, the United States is confronting another dark winter, with the red-hot Omicron variant threatening to worsen an already dangerous surge of cases.

Hospitalizations for COVID-19 have jumped 45% over the last month, and confirmed cases have increased 40% to a weeklong average of 123,000 new U.S. infections a day, according to a Reuters tally.

Pfizer Inc, one of the chief vaccine makers, on Friday predicted the pandemic would last until 2024 and said a lower-dose version of its vaccine for children ages 2 to 4 generated a weaker-than-expected immune response, which could delay authorization.

The National Football League rescheduled three weekend games after multiple teams were hard hit by outbreaks.

The National Hockey League added another game to its recent list of postponements, heightening doubts about the league's plan to send the world's top players to the Beijing Olympics in February.

In New York City, Radio City Music Hall announced it has canceled all remaining dates of the Rockettes' annual Christmas Spectacular "due to increasing challenges from the pandemic," after staging more than 100 shows over the past seven weeks.

The Michael Jackson musical "MJ" on Broadway canceled performances through Dec. 27, joining other Broadway productions that have called off shows after cast and crew members tested positive.

The Omicron variant appears to be far more transmissible than previous iterations of the virus, and more agile in evading immune defenses, according to early studies.

Public health officials say it is likely to become the dominant variant in the country, following fast-moving spreads in countries such as South Africa and the United Kingdom, and could strain hospitals still struggling to contain this summer's Delta variant surge.

"GET BOOSTED NOW. Tidal wave of Omicron likely coming to a hospital near you soon," Dr. Tom Frieden, former chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), posted on Twitter.

Preliminary data in South Africa suggests Omicron leads to milder illness than the Delta variant, which is still driving much of the current wave of infections. But a British study released on Friday found no difference in severity between the two variants.

Either way, Omicron's extraordinary level of infectiousness means it could cause many additional deaths, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on Friday.

"When you have a larger number of people getting infected, the total amount of hospitalizations is going to be more. That's just simple math," Fauci told CNBC.

Fauci also said officials are discussing whether to redefine what it means to be "fully vaccinated" to include booster shots.

PULLING THE PLUG?

The latest surge is creating yet another round of disruptions to daily life, though widespread lockdowns of workplaces and social gatherings have not been put in place.

A federal appeals court on Friday reinstated a nationwide vaccine-or-testing COVID-19 mandate for large businesses - an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule that covers 80 million American workers.

Some Americans have reconsidered holiday plans. Winifred Donoghue, a New York City advertising writer, canceled a Jan. 8 disco party at her family's vacation home in Highland Lakes, New Jersey, that was intended to be a joint celebration of her 60th birthday and the new year.

"Two weeks ago, everyone was boosted. Then the infections went up exponentially," she said. "By January, who is going to feel safe? I just pulled the plug on it."

Eric Hrubant, the chief executive of CIRE Travel, said he hadn't yet seen a wave of cancellations, as he did in August when the Delta variant swept the country. But worried clients have inundated the agency with calls about new COVID-19 protocols, such as mandatory travel quarantines.

"People aren't panicking," he said. "People are making educated decisions."

Several states have hit alarming levels of cases and hospitalizations. The U.S. states reporting the highest seven-day average of infections were New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan, according to a Reuters tally.

In Ohio, exhausted hospital workers will be getting some help starting on Monday from 1,050 National Guard troops – including 150 nurses, emergency medical technicians and others with medical training, Governor Mike DeWine said on Friday.

The CDC released a new "test-to-stay" strategy on Friday that allows unvaccinated children to remain in school even if they are exposed to the virus.

The protocol is intended to replace automatic quarantines, which have required tens of thousands of students to miss school days this fall.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in Princeton, New Jersey, and Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose, Carl O'Donnell, Roshan Abraham, Jill Serjeant, Susan Heavey, Caroline Humer, Mrinalika Roy, Leroy Leo and Frank Pingue; Editing by Howard Goller, Cynthia Osterman and Sonya Hepinstall)

The pandemic is ending in 2024...This is gonna take EVEN longer to get back to normal than next year. I thought the pandemic will be ending next year because most people are getting vaccinated. STUPID OMICRON VARIANT! This Winter will be WORST than last year.
I hope this isn't happening because 2024 is too far away for ending pandemic. Mask mandate for trains, planes and buses will be until 2024. Thanks alot....I wonder mask mandate will be ending for trains, buses and planes next year than 2024 if the pandemic is ending sooner.