Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[DCBaker]

One more time for the kids in the back -- please take the political commentary elsewhere.

Steve and the mods have been kind enough to leave this thread mostly as-is so that we can use it to share information and come together. Let's not spoil it with unrelated political commentary.

And once more in case you missed it.

 

[techgeek]

To anyone who's still calling for governments and public health organizations to 'show their math' to justify the actions being undertaken, well, here's some excellent math:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

Washington Post reports that this paper specifically has driven policy in the last few days both in London and at the White House:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/a-chilling-scientific-paper-helped-upend-us-and-uk-coronavirus-strategies/2020/03/17/aaa84116-6851-11ea-b199-3a9799c54512_story.html

The Imperial College London group reported that if nothing was done by governments and individuals and the pandemic remained uncontrolled, 510,000 would die in Britain and 2.2 million in the United States over the course of the outbreak.
These kinds of numbers are deeply concerning for countries with top-drawer health-care systems. They are terrifying for less-developed countries, global health experts say.

If Britain and the United States pursued more-ambitious measures to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, to slow but not necessarily stop the epidemic over the coming few months, they could reduce mortality by half, to 260,000 people in the United Kingdom and 1.1 million in the United States.

Finally, if the British government quickly went all-out to suppress viral spread — aiming to reverse epidemic growth and reduce the case load to a low level — then the number of dead in the country could drop to below 20,000. To do this, the researchers said, Britain would have to enforce social distancing for the entire population, isolate all cases, demand quarantines of entire households where anyone is sick, and close all schools and universities — and do this not for weeks but for 12 to 18 months, until a vaccine is available.

“We might be living in a very different world for a year or more,” Ferguson told reporters.

To keep on topic, some of this says to me that we may be looking at a very different reality when WDW does re-open. Even if we are able to relax some of the more aggressive controls, hard operational decisions are going to have to be made to bring things in line with social distancing requirements that, by the math, look like they will be with us for the long haul.

How do we have an operational WDW without lines, and with restaurant & show capacities dramatically slashed?

 

[PeoplemoverTTA]

Conversations ebb and flow... it's OK, really.

I think everyone is staying on point very well. (And politics actually *does* pertain to this situation, to be honest).

Most are not on point and are instead personal opinions of presidential candidates. Conversations ebb and flow, but this isn't a political thread. Aside from how the president specifically addresses the coronavirus, it doesn't fit here.

 

[wishiwere@wdw]

Another update: when WDW reopens later this Spring, expect some changes as we all adjust to the “new normal”. Sure, Purell everywhere, but moreso:

1) if you have an ADR, it may be taken away from you. Until there is a COVID-19 vaccination, restaurant capacities will be significantly reduced to provide 6 ft. between tables. Anyone who has ever dined at a WDW restaurant will understand how significant of a reduction we are looking at.
2) queue changes: fewer people will be allowed in indoor queues, causing them to stack up into walkways. There may be an adjustment to FP windows to better control those crowds. One idea floated is 30-min windows like at DLP. Another option is an expansion of BGs.
3) masks
4) reduction in face character M&Gs. As it is not a zoonosis, furries can’t catch COVID-19.
5) Enhanced push for Mobile Ordering

Thank you. Your updates are spot on and appreciated. Just to add, which you or others may have already mentioned and I missed, is the very high likelihood that we’ll see the parks reopen in phases and even when they do fully reopen, many attractions, services and stands will be still closed; probably for quite some time. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the resorts reopening as that is still a massive unknown due to not knowing the full extent of the closure just yet. That will become evident when folks booked way out past a reasonable window and still get a call to either cancel or change resorts for their upcoming visit.

On a side note, it is so unbelievably eerie no longer hearing the fireworks each night. Hearing them for so long every night has them baked into my brain and even helps me know when a kid should be getting ready for bed . Just... weird the things you miss.

While our family isn’t directly impacted (by the WDW closure specifically as we’re all impacted in some form), it is just heartbreaking to watch this unfold. So many people that we are very close to are having their lives flipped upside-down. We need to do this right the first time and reopen correctly with the proper precautions in place; many of which will seem like overkill but isn’t. Then, all of us that can afford to do so need to get out there while following these procedures properly and support the economy to the best of our ability while remaining upbeat and positive even with the above information. It will get better .

 

[thomas998]

But back on topic, I am hearing from my family that their schools are being cancelled for the rest of the school year and I am curious (since this is the Disney related thread) how that will affect the crowds, when WDW does reopen. Will it be insane the first week or will the Summer be brutal with all the cancelled spring break trips?

Very unlikely. The economy is going to be in a shambles for at least a 12 months even if we get back to business as usual in a few more weeks. Many people will have seen their 401k's whittled down by more than 50% and even though they aren't close to retirement age that will have a psychological impact on them and most likely will cause them to be more cautious with money for a while. Then of course their will be the lingering fear of airports which will reduce people willing to fly to Disney. I suspect it will be a slow build up like it was after the financial crisis in 2007-08... I remember after that happened Disney seemed to do more things to try and bring back guests than normal and the attendance was pretty flat during that time period. And that crisis resulted in far less economic pain than the current crisis is likely to cause. I know there is no way I could convince my wife to go anywhere if it required air travel. I would expect it to be a less crowded time when it comes back, maybe significantly less crowded.

 

[DisneyDebRob]

Conversations ebb and flow... it's OK, really.

I think everyone is staying on point very well. (And politics actually *does* pertain to this situation, to be honest).

It does but there are sub forums for that. I’m pretty sure everyone here knows, by a lot of the comments,who watches FOX and who watches CNN on here. Let’s try and keep it on topic with covid-19 and as much as possible the effects on Disney.

 

[DCBaker]

Thanks for cleaning up the thread @wdwmagic @The Mom

 

[DCBaker]

I agree that there are subforums; however, I think we can also all agree that everyone's thoughts are all over the place right now.

Simply scrolling by a handful of posts that are not 100% Disney-related surely won't hurt anyone.

There's 336 pages of this thread that I'm sure has gone all over the place with topics.

See here from @wdwmagic -

Please try to stay on topic guys and avoid the political aspects. Feel free to start another thread in the politics section if needed.

 

[rnese]

One thing I've learned from this whole experience is that those people who do the sign language at these press conferences make the strangest faces.

 

[DisneyDebRob]

I agree that there are subforums; however, I think we can also all agree that everyone's thoughts are all over the place right now.

Simply scrolling by a handful of posts that are not 100% Disney-related surely won't hurt anyone.

There's 336 pages of this thread that I'm sure has gone all over the place with topics.

The problem is and has always been here is that once it starts, it goes on and on. Then @The Mom comes in to shut it down. If we all keep it to the point of the original OP we can continue to discuss this freely. Like I said, if anyone wants to get into details and involves who they think should be doing a better job or who would do a better job, see the sub forums.

 

[disneygeek90]

Only one bag of TP at Walmart rope drop today.
And they opened the store earlier than posted 6 am time.

More talk like this, please. It makes me feel close to park lingo.

 

[rnese]

No toilet paper

Lol. That'll do it.

 

[celluloid]

One thing I've learned from this whole experience is that those people who do the sign language at these press conferences make the strangest faces.

Interpreters.
It is part of tone when you are using gestures to speak in sign. They look extreme because hlwe have a lot of auditory nuances to help us
Let it hit you with gratitude and remind you what is sad is many kids who will be at home from their ASL classes in public schools will have very little communication as often parents never even learned ASL and others near them will not.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

For now the government has choosen to collapse the US economy which will lead to a bunch of bad stuff, have to ask the question is it really worth it to save 80-90 year olds? Because that is really what this is for, saving the old and feeble out there. How many young peoples lives is it worth destroying to save an 80 year old who will die soon anyways? In my opinion none. You had your time, what happens after that is up to God.

There will be an increase in wife beatings/killings. There will be an increase in robberies/murders etc. There will be an increase in suicides. Funny thing is when you reduce to people to nothing peasants they get violent. It's a loss of hope for anything good to come their way. If this continues for months the rank and file will get violent.

My paternal grandfather was in the cavalry on horseback. My maternal grandmother worked at the Pentagon. Writing off our elders is writing off decades of wisdom. They died at 96 in 2001 and 85 in 2004 respectively, and neither was suffering from any kind of intellectual deterioration. My grandfather played golf daily, and loved his "constitutionals" (morning walks), and was VERY old school. He felt that children should be seen and not heard, yet when I was little, he would take me for walks so we could talk about horses (he never showed any interest in my sister or cousins). My grandmother was so full of grace and humor that you'd never know she spent much of her adult life married to a drunk who abused her or that she watched 3 of her 7 adult children die in a very short time span during her life. She once made me laugh so suddenly and so hard that I literally fell off my chair. I can only hope to be the kind of woman she was. My sons never got to meet either of them, and it pains me.

As for your second paragraph, those things aren't the fault of anyone but ourselves. Our values are in the toilet (generally speaking), and many of us jump onto whatever bandwagon happens to be "sexy" at any given moment. The things you mentioned are all on us - because we accept it. We glamorize the "train wreck" and can't take our eyes off it. We tolerate it because "it's none of our business"...when, in fact, it is. I'm not holding my breath...but I would hope that a crisis like the one in which we find ourselves would teach us how important it is to help one another. Protect one another. Be kind to one another. Going forward I hope that we demand better of ourselves and that we see a shift from "ME" and "STUFF" and "MONEY" to valuing each other.

 

[Ponderer]

Your numbers are off. They have traced back the first case of coronavirus to November, the first death from it didn't happen until January 9th... so in the first 16 days there were zero deaths, in fact it seems to have taken 2 months before the first death. With the Swine flu (H1N1) the first case was discovered in March 17th 2009, the first death was April 12th 2009... so if you want to compare the two the Swine flu was much faster to kill people... Overall it racked up 12,400 deaths in the US alone over the year it was considered a pandemic. At this time the numbers for the corona virus really aren't anywhere near the place they were with the Swine flu... So when you think about it, why are we going so far over the top with this pandemic compared to the one in 2009? Yes it is deadly, but in the swine flu pandemic we also had no vaccine but didn't go so nutty over it compared to this one.

No. We’re talking dates from *first confirmed deaths,* not how long it took to start killing people in the first place.

The other reason this is worse is because we have no reliable gauge on how bad the infection has spread. We had a million tests a month out from when CDC first believed H1N1 made US landfall. We still haven’t done the number of tests that South Korea does in a weekend, which means we lost ALL the crucial tIme you need at the beginning of a pandemic. You can not adequately fight a disease of this scope without that data, and so in the meantime it spreads unchecked. We can only trace clusters when people become symptomatic, and COVID-19 has an extraordinary shed time even if you never become symptomatic. All this adds up to is a powderkeg of a public health situation.

Data is necessary for control and we have virtually none.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Thank you. Your updates are spot on and appreciated. Just to add, which you or others may have already mentioned and I missed, is the very high likelihood that we’ll see the parks reopen in phases and even when they do fully reopen, many attractions, services and stands will be still closed; probably for quite some time. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the resorts reopening as that is still a massive unknown due to not knowing the full extent of the closure just yet. That will become evident when folks booked way out past a reasonable window and still get a call to either cancel or change resorts for their upcoming visit.

On a side note, it is so unbelievably eerie no longer hearing the fireworks each night. Hearing them for so long every night has them baked into my brain and even helps me know when a kid should be getting ready for bed . Just... weird the things you miss.

While our family isn’t directly impacted (by the WDW closure specifically as we’re all impacted in some form), it is just heartbreaking to watch this unfold. So many people that we are very close to are having their lives flipped upside-down. We need to do this right the first time and reopen correctly with the proper precautions in place; many of which will seem like overkill but isn’t. Then, all of us that can afford to do so need to get out there while following these procedures properly and support the economy to the best of our ability while remaining upbeat and positive even with the above information. It will get better .

I do expect certain attractions (and shows, especially) will not reopen until this clears up. But, attendance will be down, anyway.

I was in a meeting last Tuesday. Someone announces that her students were exposed to COVID-19 while working in the hospital. But she decided to come to this two hour meeting with us all.

Since Saturday night, I’ve had a sporadic fever, chills, significant throat mucus, a sore throat, muscle aches, fatigue and some shortness of breath (not dangerous—I’m pretty fit, so I just notice I get winded after walking for 15 min or so, which is quite unusual for me.).

I’m told my symptoms are not severe enough for a prescription to get tested. Fair enough; I certainly don’t need to be hospitalized. I’m a reasonable person, so I’m self-isolating. Not everyone is reasonable.

My wife is now sick.

My children also, although it’s far more mild for them.

Does this sound familiar? Toilet paper isn’t an issue, but I am glad I got NyQuil last week. It helps a bit.

Silver lining: once I clear this out, I can relax a bit and happily order take-out from local businesses. I’m craving Thai like woah.

 

[thomas998]

It's not ridiculous at all. Most ICU's run at very close to capacity on a good day, especially at this time of year in northern hemisphere. Even a tiny increase in very sick patients will put the entire hospital system under load.

Making matters worse is the fact that we aren't doing a good job of protecting our healthcare workers with enough PPE. A vocal group of doctors online are complaining in the past 24 hours that they can't even get tests for themselves (symptomatic) - and just told to go home for 14 days. Some hospitals forcing staff to use their vacation time or short term disability for this. This takes a decent chunk of nurses and doctors out of the system, making our hospital capacity even worse.

Not according to the last American Hospital Association study on the number of ICUs in the US. The total number in the country was over 84,000 and between 31 and 54 thousand were available for use right now. So we are hardly running close to capacity more like we are closer to 50% of capacity.

 

[rnese]

Interpreters.
It is part of tone when you are using gestures to speak in sign. They look extreme because hlwe have a lot of auditory nuances to help us
Let it hit you with gratitude and remind you what is sad is many kids who will be at home from their ASL classes in public schools will have very little communication as often parents never even learned ASL and others near them will not.

 

[DryerLintFan]

But back on topic, I am hearing from my family that their schools are being cancelled for the rest of the school year and I am curious (since this is the Disney related thread) how that will affect the crowds, when WDW does reopen. Will it be insane the first week or will the Summer be brutal with all the cancelled spring break trips?

It's been less than a week. It feels like it's been months, and everyone is stir crazy. I'm sure we'll all settle into this and get a new routine,... but I cannot imagine that people will choose to stay home when we're allowed out.

We've been going on hikes/walks and opening our windows for at least a few hours every day and that seems to help. But it's hard to stay indoors. I think everyone is feeling that.

So to answer your question,... if people still have money after this is said and done, I'm sure the parks will be crowded.

 

[wdisney9000]

I keep seeing these reports about 100+ million Americans will become infected. As of yesterday, the CDC shows appx 4,250 cases in the entire USA.

According to theses reports, we will see over 99.9 million new cases even with social distancing and shelter in place being active? Doesn't seem very effective.

And yes, I'm aware that many people haven't been tested and the numbers could be higher. But only 100 people have actually died which is a ridiculously small amount considering there is no vaccine for this and it's been over 4 weeks since cases started popping up.