Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[mmascari]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/11/most-people-are-going-get-covid-momentous-warning-senate-hearing/

This was why I mentioned this advice the other day:

"If you're going to catch it, better to do it when not everyone else is also catching it."

You'll get much better care that way.

Maybe wait for a dip/valley in cases and hospital capacity before you go our licking door knobs.

 

[Andrew C]

I have lived my life like I normally have like most Canadians.

With current restrictions in place such as indoor dining and gym closures, as well as limiting gatherings to like 5 people (I believe that is what it is now?), being able to live normally is definitely debatable. With that being said, Canada can be Canada and do what they want. If the majority of people suddenly don't support it, they will let it be known either by protesting or voting the current individuals out of office.

 

[mmascari]

Because handing someone a test they can use or not use is the same as mandating a vaccine?

One helps short term, one helps long term.

We need solutions to both the short and long term.

Without the short term actions, there will be no long term.
Without the long term actions, there will be short term actions required again and again and again for a much longer time.

 

[Andrew C]

One helps short term, one helps long term.

We need solutions to both the short and long term.

Without the short term actions, there will be no long term.
Without the long term actions, there will be short term actions required again and again and again for a much longer time.

Another reason to be upset about the continuous dropping the ball on testing and testing availability.

 

[danlb_2000]

There is really bad news from today's numbers. Florida is going up again and it now at an average of 63,801 cases a day or 297 per 100k. Hospitalizations are at 44 per 100k and deaths are 0.18 per 100k. RI by the way broke the 500 per 100k case level and is at 507 and entire US is at 229. As for NY and NJ is looks like they peaked as their cases are at 378 and 350 respectively. However their hospitalizations are at 64 and 69 and deaths are at 0.80 and 0.78 respectively, both too high.

Think about those numbers. RI had had 3.5% of their population infected in 7 days. Then think about the fact that RI is 77% fully vaccinated and since Covid19 started has had 26,894 cases per 100k as of Monday's numbers reported Tuesday. That means 27% of their population has officially had Covid19.

What went wrong? It has to be the testing and contact tracing. What happened to the contract tracing? We were all told from day 1 that those were the two most important things the government could do. They both were well funded in the first 2 emergency funding bills but it appears were completely ignored in the second half of 2021. We learned nothing and were let down by our elected leaders.

People in the US were very resistant to contact tracing. Phone apps were rolled out early on but few people used them. People were also very reluctant to co-operate when they were contacted by contact tracers. I think individuals are far more to blame then our elected leaders.

 

[mmascari]

If the sole purpose of the passport was to achieve higher vaccination rates, then bravo.

No matter how it's been sold, or any other benefits it might allow, higher vaccination rates is the best long term solution.

But that wasn’t how it was sold. It was sold as a way to allow vaccinated people to continue their lives in a somewhat normal way. “You want to go eat at a restaurant? Get vaccinated.” “You want to go to the gym? Get vaccinated.” “You want to have gatherings? Get vaccinated.” It was sold as a way to prevent the system from being overwhelmed. But that hasnt happened.

All those things work better if the overall vaccination rate is higher. The two are related, if not quite as directly.

So in that sense, you have to admit the plan failed to live up to its end of the deal.

That it hasn't moved the vaccination rate as much as required is definitely disappointing. Work mandates probably have a much larger impact. But, it moved the rate some. It's also the first step in saying the willfully unvaccinated are making a decision, and that decision has consequences about interacting with society. That impact shouldn't just be ignored. Even if it's not having a miracle of all those spaces are completely free from risk, they're at least all lower risk. And it provides some recognition to those doing the right thing already.

 

[correcaminos]

I had a non-COVID cold recently. Out of desperation, I bought some OTC phenylephrine, just for symptomatic relief.

I was yet again amazed how worthless this medication is for relief of symptoms.

I envy Canadians that can buy actual pseudoephedrine over the counter.

As one who deals with allergies and sinus issues often, I'm still salty over what happened to sudafed. I even went out of state via air and had a sinus flare up. The pharmacist refused my out of state license. Someone bought it for me with theirs. I buy it now always before I fly.

I may not have an illness, but sudafed and benadryl do help me at times with symptoms. Heck even Chlorpheniramine works on my cat.

People in the US were very resistant to contact tracing. Phone apps were rolled out early on but few people used them. People were also very reluctant to co-operate when they were contacted by contact tracers. I think individuals are far more to blame then our elected leaders.

It goes both ways. In schools kids refused to out who they were with so they wouldn't have to quarantine. Now our state took power from schools and only public health can say to quarantine. Vaccination status doesn't matter - which goes against CDC. Because you know we cannot force people to stay home when sick...

 

[MisterPenguin]

I had a non-COVID cold recently. Out of desperation, I bought some OTC phenylephrine, just for symptomatic relief.

I was yet again amazed how worthless this medication is for relief of symptoms.

I envy Canadians that can buy actual pseudoephedrine over the counter.

My experiece, too. Sudafed PE? More like Sudafed PU.

Were the pharmacy police not available to get you the good stuff behind the counter?

 

[Andrew C]

People in the US were very resistant to contact tracing. Phone apps were rolled out early on but few people used them. People were also very reluctant to co-operate when they were contacted by contact tracers. I think individuals are far more to blame then our elected leaders.

Well, I see it as their job to sell it to the people. Probably their behavior over the last decade, decades...hasn't contributed to a trustful relationship. Also, historically, we just view the government differently.

Trying to stay away from politics as best as I can. haha

 

[correcaminos]

My experiece, too. Sudafed PE? More like Sudafed PU.

Where the pharmacy police not available to get you the good stuff behind the counter?

That's my personal experience with PE and my allergies. It's worthless. Never tried it on a cold though. One I rarely catch colds and 2 I always have the good stuff at home. Between me and my cat we have a stash of otc stuff

 

[danlb_2000]

I don't think any doctor is prescribing the antibiotic to treat the virus. I'm pretty sure it's to prevent a secondary infection by a bacteria while your immune system is in a weakened state. It's possible (I don't know) that ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine make you more susceptible to bacterial infection and that is why they came up with the combo with antibiotic.

The hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin combo I believe was "invented" in Europe early on and somewhat widely used. It wasn't just one or two doctors who somehow don't know that antibiotics don't treat viruses.

My ENT and his wife got COVID very early on and he swears that hydroxychloroquine worked for both. It was prescribed by an infectious disease specialist he knew and he said that the both were had coughs and a fever that wouldn't break for days. He said his wife's symptoms improved dramatically within hours of taking it. His didn't and the prescribing physician told him to double the dose after which his fever broke and he was pretty much over it completely within a day.

His experience was before the "controversy" surrounding using it as a treatment. Nobody can possibly know if it was just a coincidence or if it really worked but we need to stop thinking that anybody who advocates for certain treatment is some quack. My ENT had never indicated a desire to go outside of medical norms when treating me and he didn't ask for the treatment, it was prescribed by an infectious disease specialist.

But we do know, because lots of scientific studies were done and no correlation could be found between administrator of hydroxychloroquine and improvement of outcome.

 

[mmascari]

Comment on the economic impacts of employer vaccine mandates:




I'm sure everyone here understands that it's significantly cheaper to keep current employees instead of needing to find/hire/train new ones. So, even if you ignore any other reason, that one alone likely tips the scale in favor of an employer mandate.

 

[sullyinMT]

Comment on the economic impacts of employer vaccine mandates:




I'm sure everyone here understands that it's significantly cheaper to keep current employees instead of needing to find/hire/train new ones. So, even if you ignore any other reason, that one alone likely tips the scale in favor of an employer mandate.

I hate to be overly cynical, but would this also affect the employer sponsored group life insurance rate?

 

[The Mom]

Just a reminder that personal attacks are still not allowed. Please behave.

 

[Andrew C]

Comment on the economic impacts of employer vaccine mandates:




I'm sure everyone here understands that it's significantly cheaper to keep current employees instead of needing to find/hire/train new ones. So, even if you ignore any other reason, that one alone likely tips the scale in favor of an employer mandate.

I personally expect a split decision from the SC. Keep the mandate in place for health care workers but shoot down the fed mandate for employers. However, I wouldn't be surprised if I was totally wrong.

 

[mmascari]

I hate to be overly cynical, but would this also affect the employer sponsored group life insurance rate?

It probably does. And the tweet was more about just the death stats.

My commentary on not having to replace employees being cheaper, plus add in group life insurance, can probably add in health insurance costs in general. Could add in length of sick time too.

All combined mean even if we think of a company as a soulless money making machine treating employees as replaceable cogs as if it exists on it's own and isn't run by actual people. Even then, having a vaccinated workforce is going to have an economic advantage long term over having an unvaccinated workforce.

That makes it a bonus that an employer financial advantage and a public health goal share the same path. Both want as many vaccinated as possible. This is much better than distancing or capacity restrictions where the two are opposed.

 

[DisneyCane]

I personally expect a split decision from the SC. Keep the mandate in place for health care workers but shoot down the fed mandate for employers. However, I wouldn't be surprised if I was totally wrong.

Definitely possible because at least CMS can make a reasonable argument that the legislative intent was for the agency to provide health care to Medicare and Medicaid recipients and that the mandate can help protect their health.

The OSHA justification is a much bigger stretch as nobody can suggest with a straight face that the legislative intent when OSHA was created was for them to protect workers from airborne viruses.

My one question to CMS is why wouldn't you mandate that Medicare and Medicaid RECIPIENTS get vaccinated since that is a proven way to protect their health and save money on treatment? The provider mandate doesn't provide nearly the level of protection for the patients even under a best-case scenario.

 

[DisneyCane]

Comment on the economic impacts of employer vaccine mandates:




I'm sure everyone here understands that it's significantly cheaper to keep current employees instead of needing to find/hire/train new ones. So, even if you ignore any other reason, that one alone likely tips the scale in favor of an employer mandate.

Is his stat including the time before the vaccines were available in the average?

He said "more than one" so even if we go with 2 per week, out of 87k employees that's 0.12% of the work force per year. Going with "more than one" I guess we can make a range of 0.06%-0.12% per year. I'm sure their normal employee churn is higher than that so I'm not sure it makes a big difference to their bottom line.

 

[mmascari]

Is his stat including the time before the vaccines were available in the average?

He said "more than one" so even if we go with 2 per week, out of 87k employees that's 0.12% of the work force per year. Going with "more than one" I guess we can make a range of 0.06%-0.12% per year. I'm sure their normal employee churn is higher than that so I'm not sure it makes a big difference to their bottom line.

Large companies do all kinds of things to move that employee churn percent by very little values. A 0.1% shift for a policy feels right in line with other things. How do we think "Friday Pizza" or assorted company promo gifts move the churn value and some do all those too.

And that's looking at only the churn number, which is what I posted originally. As pointed out by @sullyinMT there's other costs too. Some may have smaller, some larger financial impacts. They'll all add up.

As long as the economic advantage of a fully vaccinated workforce outweighs the cost of hiring one, it'll be the advantageous position.

 

[Jrb1979]

Thousands sign up for 1st dose of COVID-19 vaccine as Quebec threatens to tax the unvaxxed

Thousands more people have registered for their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, amid threats by Quebec officials to tax the unvaccinated.

montreal.ctvnews.ca

Looks like threatening a tax is working to get people vaccinated. Dangling carrots doesn't work.