Do you think that Disney world will reclose its gates due to the rising number of COVID cases in Florida and around the country?

[JohnD]

Not really. When you're performing tens of thousands of tests, errors happen. This does not mean that people's test results are being fabricated, it means there is a problem with follow up contact tracing, where specimens are being labelled with the wrong person's contact info. Yes, this is a problem, but it is not a systematic one.

300 labs in FL with 100% positive. Yeah "errors happen."

 

[October82]

What are you referring to? Airlines require masks as far as I know. People have been flying all along. There aren't many businesses left that aren't focusing on new safety. You have to follow the rules at Disney. Why does it matter much what people do outside of that if the park itself literally screens guests and makes them wear a mask everywhere? Masks either work or they don't.

Why does it matter? Because none of the measures that have been taken are 100%. They lower your probability of being infected, but if you still have a large number of chances for infection, those methods will fail over the long term. With perfect mask compliance and people using masks correctly, the total number of new infections will be lower. But in reality, people mostly use masks incorrectly, some don't use them at all, etc. In the end, it is a question of driving the total number of cases down to a manageable level. By opening tourist destinations, encouraging more people to fly, etc. we're simply increasing the number of opportunities for infection.

The question isn't "does reopening tourist attractions increase cases?", it is, "do the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs?"

I'm going go bring up the protests again too (NOT POLITICAL) because most Disney closure enthusiasts were confidently vouching for the mass protests as low risk while a theme park with strict guidelines is considered evil. If the protests didn't prove that masks work, what would? I can't for the life of me understand the targeted outrage being hurled at Disney over any other theme park currently open.

Masks do work. They do not work perfectly. That doesn't mean there aren't costs with any new large gatherings of people. Yes, theme parks themselves are probably relatively low risk for any individual person.

 

[October82]

300 labs in FL with 100% positive. Yeah "errors happen."

So this is a different issue from the one mentioned a few posts ago, but there's so much misunderstanding about what this actually means, when yes, it also means "mistakes happen".

 

[HauntedPirate]

There is no evidence that going to a theme park with masks and all of these absurdly thorough measures are infecting people nevermind killing people. In fact, most science tells us that a mostly outdoor theme park would not be considered high risk in their criteria. There is also no evidence that this virus is going to disappear if we all commit to living in a bubble for months on end. People suffer immensely in lock down. Disney found a way to do this and it's voluntary. Your (general) choices don't end if someone out there wants to try to enjoy an amusement park. I have been going to the beach every week and it looks like a lot of people feel the same. It cured so much of my severe isolation and depression. I'm not selfish for going to the ocean to enjoy my time. We'd be here all day arguing about what is essential to someone. We don't get to define that for each other.

If you were talking about your regional Six Flags, then your statement "a mostly outdoor theme park would not be considered high risk" would be a bit more applicable, but it's not. Many queues are indoors. All have railings. Gift shops, restaurants, etc. There are still hundreds of surfaces people can touch where a virus can and does live. CM's cannot clean them often enough to catch/kill everything. A person who is not wearing a mask means they are spreading whatever germs they have onto those surfaces and thus spreading the disease. It's not coincidental that many people get sick while at WDW long before COVID came into our lives, but a stomach bug lasting a few days doesn't generate the buzz, or the body count.

 

[October82]

Agreed, errors like reporting 100 percent positive in a data dump by accident, reporting multiple days as one day, marking motor cycle accident victim as a COVID death, reporting positive antibody tests as a NEW positive cases of COVID and reporting folks positive who were never tested is insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

The snark isn't necessary. We can go through each of these things in detail - explaining what aspects are false - but at the end of the day, no, there is no systemic underlying problem in the way testing is being conducted. It is, IMO, deeply saddening to see how social media amplifies false and misleading information to such an extent that we no longer trust the medical and public health communities to be acting with integrity.

The systemic underlying problem in testing is much simpler. There are not enough tests and people aren't tested enough. The case and death counts are under counts, not over counts.

 

[oceanbreeze77]

Just remember.....it was deemed unsafe to open Disneyland

 

[Miss Bella]

[/QUOTE]

Not really. When you're performing tens of thousands of tests, errors happen. This does not mean that people's test results are being fabricated, it means there is a problem with follow up contact tracing, where specimens are being labelled with the wrong person's contact info. Yes, this is a problem, but it is not a systematic one.

Labeling a specimen with the wrong person's name would be a really big problem.

 

[October82]

Labeling a specimen with the wrong person's name would be a really big problem.

Oh, absolutely. For the patient in question. It raises a whole host of privacy and medical ethics concerns.

But the implication here is that people are having test results fabricated, when even the linked story indicates that clearly isn't the case.

 

[kong1802]

300 labs in FL with 100% positive. Yeah "errors happen."

And what is the statistical impact of those 300 labs?

Again, nice headline, but the details are a little less sensational.......

 

[JohnD]

The snark isn't necessary. We can go through each of these things in detail - explaining what aspects are false - but at the end of the day, no, there is no systemic underlying problem in the way testing is being conducted. It is, IMO, deeply saddening to see how social media amplifies false and misleading information to such an extent that we no longer trust the medical and public health communities to be acting with integrity.

The systemic underlying problem in testing is much simpler. There are not enough tests and people aren't tested enough. The case and death counts are under counts, not over counts.

But you're saying there is nothing wrong with "errors" but at the same time lament social media. I can agree with you on the social media part. Like, how these "errors" are manipulated to suit agendas. Even in your case, you are ready to explain away the "errors" but not so much the inflated numbers that are used to promote policies such as keeping schools shut, mandating masks, going back into lockdown, etc. But tell me again why these "errors" don't matter so much.

 

[October82]

But you're saying there is nothing wrong with "errors" but at the same time lament social media.

I am saying that the "errors" in the linked post and many of the others do not change the statistics of Covid. When managing a complicated and evolving situation, mistakes happen. We should learn what those mistakes are and determine if they are systemic or not. All of the examples mentioned in this thread are either isolated mistakes, completely false or otherwise do not impact the overall picture. None of them remotely compare to the problems introduced by the lack of adequate testing.

I can agree with you on the social media part. Like, how these "errors" are manipulated to suit agendas. Even in your case, you are ready to explain away the "errors" but not so much the inflated numbers that are used to promote policies such as keeping schools shut, mandating masks, going back into lockdown, etc. But tell me again why these "errors" don't matter so much.

The statistics are not compiled by people with agendas, they are compiled by medical and public health scientists. The numbers aren't inflated. We know this because we can measure how badly we are doing with testing and through comparisons with other countries. Understanding how testing works, how errors happen, and what effects they have isn't "explaining away" inconvenient information, it is understanding what the data does and does not tell you.

But tell me again why these "errors" don't matter so much.

If you have one in particular you'd like to talk about, let's start there. If you want to talk in general, the simple answer is that we are talking about many thousands or millions of tests being done. The only problems that matter for the statistics are those that also occur many thousands or millions of times.

I'll also just add that there are ways to quantify all of these effects. If you have a technical or mathematical background, I'm happy to go into the details. We can also look at the scientific literature where people use this data to understand the epidemiology of the disease, and where major inconsistencies would also be easily discovered.

 

[JoeCamel]

For all of you thinking the positives are being over reported I ask that you carefully read the statement below the graph. How many double negatives are being counted?????

 

[lazyboy97o]

Just remember.....it was deemed unsafe to open Disneyland

It has been deemed unsafe to open Gröna Lund and Liseberg.

 

[BrianLo]

Cases
June 22nd 7-day average; 3270
July 22nd 7-day average; 11116
Change: 340%

Deaths
June 22nd 7-day average; 33
July 22nd 7-day average; 118
Change: 357%

Funny how that works?

Meanwhile a poster is gleefully declaring that ‘things have maybe even declined in the last month’?

That’s not spin, it’s called lying.

 

[JohnD]

Which is what that conspiracy you shared is.

But back to the actual numbers, were you able to come up with the statistical impact of those "300 labs" yet?

Seriously? You're really okay with 300 labs all reporting 100% positive? And that doesn't matter to you? Now take 300 labs and multiply that nationwide. I bet if I said 300 precincts all reported 100% for the same candidate you wouldn't be so cavalier about the statistical impact. You would, rightly, want to know what is going on. And that is my point. Not "Oh well. It doesn't matter very much statistically so why should I care if numerous labs report 100% positive cases". No, I would want to know the exact number of cases. I don't give a **** whether it has a "statistical impact" on the reporting or not. I want correct numbers.

 

[kong1802]

Seriously? You're really okay with 300 labs all reporting 100% positive? And that doesn't matter to you? Now take 300 labs and multiply that nationwide. I bet if I said 300 precincts all reported 100% for the same candidate you wouldn't be so cavalier about the statistical impact. You would, rightly, want to know what is going on.

That's a long way of saying "No, I don't know the statistical impact".

If 300 precincts with a total of 4000 voters all went one way, no, I wouldn't throw out the results of 5 million because of those 4000.

Sure, find out what happened, but not start down some weird conspiracy hole because of it.

Which is why the statistical impact has to be taken into consideration. Once you do that, you'll be able to better rationalize and prioritize.

 

[JohnD]

That's a long way of saying "No, I don't know the statistical impact".

Which is a red herring. How about reporting accurate numbers?

 

[kong1802]

Which is a red herring. How about reporting accurate numbers?

Again, you are falling for headlines and conspiracies.

You can't or shouldn't throw out 270k positives because you think 4k positives are incorrect.

Math has to win the day sometimes.

 

[JohnD]

Again, you are falling for headlines and conspiracies.

You can't or shouldn't throw out 270k positives because you think 4k positives are incorrect.

Math has to win the day sometimes.

If labs can't be trusted to provide accurate results, then "statistical impact" is meaningless. Again, try that logic on voting precincts and see how long that line of argument lasts.

 

[kong1802]

If labs can't be trusted to provide accurate results, then "statistical impact" is meaningless. Again, try that logic on voting precincts and see how long that line of argument lasts.

So you are throwing out the results of 300,000 tests because some labs didn't report negatives?

Context isn't important? The fact that those labs reported 4,000 positives out of the 270,000 positives doesn't factor in for you?

Would you throw out all the results if a lab that tested 5 people only reported one of those tests?

Yes, let's apply it to voting precincts.

Let's say a precinct with 100 registered voters fails to even report 1 of those 100 votes. Do you throw out the entire election result if candidate A won by 1 million votes? You would say, "Stop, we gotta do it all over again"?

Math has to win.