Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[mmascari]

Here is data that I grabbed this morning for the past 7 day average of cases per 100k population from the CDC. Can we please finally agree that short of severe restrictions there is nothing that a governor or government can do "right" at this point to keep the spread at bay? We have states with governors that supposedly are "doing everything right" like Wolf, Murphy and Cuomo doing worse statistically than states with governors supposedly "doing everything wrong" like Desantis, Abbott and Kemp. California and Florida are equal despite different approaches as are Georgia and Oregon.

A bunch of these states seemed to have the spread at bay up until relatively recently so they were starting at a better point than states like FL yet they are all having issues. If people are going to criticize Desantis and give him nicknames, why don't the governors of these other states get the same criticism?

I won't criticize any of them because the data seems to show that without very strict restrictions the virus is going to do what viruses do and spread. Just closing bars or instituting certain mandates obviously isn't the magic bullet that keeps things under control.

Pennsylvania	53.1​
Missouri	52.7​
Alabama	51.2​
Connecticut	49.1​
Louisiana	48.1​
New Jersey	45.4​
New York	42.8​
Massachusetts	38.3​
New Hampshire	37.5​
California	36.8​
Florida	36.8​
Maryland	35.3​
Texas	34.7​
North Carolina	34.5​
Georgia	32.9​
Oregon	32.9​

We definitely cannot agree that: short of severe restrictions there is nothing that a governor or government can do "right" at this point to keep the spread at bay.

The things being called "doing everything right" are all partial measures. They're definitely not "everything". And, its showing the shortcomings of stopping at just those things. There's been some isolated push for those extra things like tracing and better testing. But, without a unified federal push and funding, the limed ones being done are not enough. We can agree that even those governors are not doing enough because they don't have the federal support.

I will agree that once spread is large enough, that only severe restrictions can provide a break to get numbers back down so other methods can be effective. This works because widespread infections require stopping all interactions instead of targeted one. See the last 6 weeks of France. This isn't a long term solution though, it's temporary break. The restrictions will never get spread below some threshold, the other actions are necessary then. We've had crap policy nationally on the other things and downright mocking of some of them.

I am what you might call a "die hard Trumper." Not because of cult hero worship but because I supported the things he was doing before COVID which I thought would improve the economy and the country. I didn't vote for him in the primary because of his abrasive personality but I turned into a supporter based on what he was doing as President. I also knew the second that COVID started spreading that he wouldn't be re-elected unless the Democrats nominated a really terrible candidate.

He could have won in a landslide. It was, and still is, a policy decision for how to deal with COVID. From the downplaying, the interference with messaging and guidelines, the direction the federal response should take, the insertion of executive branch political decisions into information from pseudo independent agencies. Support, or lack of support, for COVID support bills, the dysfunctional negotiating style where the negotiator is completely undermined in a tweet after agreements.

If instead it had been approached as problem from day one, or even day 30 or 60, or 90 instead of the policies that were taken we could be in a very different place COVID wise. In a scenario where it was dealt with using the tools the infectious disease experts said were needed, using the funding power of the federal government, we could be someplace completely different. In that scenario, he wins again.

I dislike his other policies too, but the 270,000 probably going to be 500,000 or way more deaths is a higher price than I would want to pay to replace those policies. I could have lived with those policies for four more years if it meant a quarter million people wouldn't have died. (That's my privilege, others who those policies harm have different math.)

 

[HarperRose]

Disney Cruise Line Coronavirus (COVID-19) Travel Alert​

December 4, 2020

Disney Cruise Line Extends Suspension of All Departures Through February 28, 2021

Our team at Disney Cruise Line remains focused on the health and well-being of our Guests and team members. We are continuing to carefully review the guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and are working toward resuming operations.

As we continue to refine our protocols for our eventual return to service, we have decided to cancel all departures through February 28, 2021. Sailings are cancelled onboard the Disney Magic through February 25; the Disney Wonder and Disney Dream through February 26; and the Disney Fantasy through February 27.

Guests booked on affected sailings who have paid their reservation in full will be offered the choice of a cruise credit to be used for a future sailing or a full refund. Guests who have not paid their reservations in full will automatically receive a refund of what they have paid so far. Affected Guests and travel agents will receive an email from Disney Cruise Line outlining details and next steps.

Guests who've booked their reservation through a travel agent should contact them directly with any questions. Those who've booked directly with Disney Cruise Line and have questions after receiving their email should call (866) 325-6685 or (407) 566-7797.

https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/guest-services/advisory/

I know RCC has currently suspended their line until the end of February, too.

 

[GoofGoof]

It is easy to ask on January 20, 2021 that asking Americans to wear a mask for 100 days and say the problem will be over. There are many news stories that say by April most people will be able to walk up and get a vaccine shot. 100 days after January 20, 2021 is April 30, 2021 and thanks to our pharmaceutical companies and project warp speed, we will have heard immunity by then. Of course there are so many people who will give Biden credit for it when he had absolutely nothing to do with it. Just like those who give Trump full credit for the vaccine when all he did was spend the money and encourage the scientists to work faster. Trump did not invent the vaccine and did what most Presidents would do.

The first problem, Covid19 is almost over. Now comes the bigger priblem, it's ramifications. Thousands of small businesses are gone and won't come back. Millions of people are unemployed and adding taxes increases the risk for success and lowers the possible rate of return, so many people won't invest in risky businesses. Higher taxes on upper middleclass people will hurt vacations and other unnecessary expenses. The decreases in peoples savings will have to be replaced, thus hurting the recovery. Anyone who thinks everything will go back to the way it was last December is. delusional. I know I am lucky and my life will actually be better because WDW will not be as crowded and the costs won't be able to increase as fast. But the downside of that is Disney will have less Cast Members and those they have will be paid less and taxed more. In the end people will question if we did the right thing?

It’s going to take some time, but there is a path out of this economically. Certain industries may take permanent hits. Cruise lines come to mind. Movie theaters. I think we are lucky that Disney was a very healthy company going in and invested wisely in the streaming assets which helped them tremendously through this. WDW will be fine, but I think there is an inevitable delay in capacitance spend that May last a few years. Many less healthy tourist businesses may not last through this period.

 

[DisneyDebRob]

We definitely cannot agree that: short of severe restrictions there is nothing that a governor or government can do "right" at this point to keep the spread at bay.

The things being called "doing everything right" are all partial measures. They're definitely not "everything". And, its showing the shortcomings of stopping at just those things. There's been some isolated push for those extra things like tracing and better testing. But, without a unified federal push and funding, the limed ones being done are not enough. We can agree that even those governors are not doing enough because they don't have the federal support.

I will agree that once spread is large enough, that only severe restrictions can provide a break to get numbers back down so other methods can be effective. This works because widespread infections require stopping all interactions instead of targeted one. See the last 6 weeks of France. This isn't a long term solution though, it's temporary break. The restrictions will never get spread below some threshold, the other actions are necessary then. We've had crap policy nationally on the other things and downright mocking of some of them.


He could have won in a landslide. It was, and still is, a policy decision for how to deal with COVID. From the downplaying, the interference with messaging and guidelines, the direction the federal response should take, the insertion of executive branch political decisions into information from pseudo independent agencies. Support, or lack of support, for COVID support bills, the dysfunctional negotiating style where the negotiator is completely undermined in a tweet after agreements.

If instead it had been approached as problem from day one, or even day 30 or 60, or 90 instead of the policies that were taken we could be in a very different place COVID wise. In a scenario where it was dealt with using the tools the infectious disease experts said were needed, using the funding power of the federal government, we could be someplace completely different. In that scenario, he wins again.

I dislike his other policies too, but the 270,000 probably going to be 500,000 or way more deaths is a higher price than I would want to pay to replace those policies. I could have lived with those policies for four more years if it meant a quarter million people wouldn't have died. (That's my privilege, others who those policies harm have different math.)

This .

 

[hopemax]

Some of us here were guessing spring maybe to see it possibly happen. Others I remember saying July or August of 2020.. then switching to September-October.. then probably November or by Christmas. We all saw how bad this was, don’t know how they could think that. Anyway, I still think that time frame of February is early with when people will be getting vaccinated but we will see.

Disney will probably try to hit the ground running, and start the process of getting the first ships back up to speed. If Disney could partner with the state to be a vaccination site, especially for Cruise & WDW CMs and their families. Then they could also start selling the vaccinated the earliest shake down cruises. Well, at least the people still employed.

 

[Parker in NYC]

Some of us here were guessing spring maybe to see it possibly happen. Others I remember saying July or August of 2020.. then switching to September-October.. then probably November or by Christmas. We all saw how bad this was, don’t know how they could think that. Anyway, I still think that time frame of February is early with when people will be getting vaccinated but we will see.

Because people said the parks would be closed for two weeks. You know, someone in power said it was a hoax.

 

[DisneyCane]

It’s going to take some time, but there is a path out of this economically. Certain industries may take permanent hits. Cruise lines come to mind. Movie theaters. I think we are lucky that Disney was a very healthy company going in and invested wisely in the streaming assets which helped them tremendously through this. WDW will be fine, but I think there is an inevitable delay in capacitance spend that May last a few years. Many less healthy tourist businesses may not last through this period.

I think it will take a lot of time. Cruise lines probably don't have that much of a trickle down effect on the US economy. The ships are mostly (if not all) built in foreign countries, most of the onboard staff is from places like Indonesia or the Philippines, etc. Movie theatres will have more of a trickle down. First, they do employ a decent number of people (although many are high school students) but more important is the real estate aspect. If a movie theatre closes, a landlord is left with a large space that is no longer leased. Combined with the pressures that already exist on brick and mortar businesses, this leads to lower lease rates for retail space which eventually makes real estate less valuable. This same paradigm exists with office space since some percentage of in person work will likely remain work from home permanently.

Restaurant closures also will have a long term negative effect. There's the owners, landlords, employees and then there are suppliers, point of sale hardware/software suppliers, etc. who are all negatively effected by a restaurant closing.

Not to mention the mindboggling deficit spending that has to lead to inflation eventually. If it doesn't then why not just eliminate taxes and print money for all Government spending? No, I'm not serious about eliminating taxes but why would any taxes need to be increased to pay for anything if trillions of dollars in new debt doesn't have an adverse effect?

 

[oceanbreeze77]

cruises will be the last thing to return.

 

[mmascari]

I think you may be overestimating the number of people who spread it with no idea they were a risk to spread it. Here is an example (I've actually heard a few similar stories):

My brother is an assistant coach for a youth baseball team. In the third inning of a game two weeks ago, they were informed that a kid who was playing in the game just got a positive test result and needed to leave. His mom had symptoms a few days earlier and tested positive. The kid got tested due to the close contact with his mom even though he was asymptomatic. However, he continued his normal life until he received a positive test result. He should have quarantined just from the close contact with a positive (and symptomatic) case. I think there are at least hundreds of thousands of stories like this.

I should have asked here, was the kid on your bother's team or the other one? Do the kids wear masks in the dugout or otherwise distance instead of sitting in the dugout? Do they wear masks when playing?

If the kid was on the other team, other than when he was at bat or on the bases he wasn't near anyone. An over abundance of caution might have the infielders and umpire isolate. But, it was outside and probably for short duration at least so they're likely fine.

If the kid was on his team, there's more to consider. Obviously the 9 kinds on the field aren't anywhere near each other. Depending on age, the kid in right field might never be near anyone ever. But, the dugout, even though it's outside, is a riskier proposition depending on more variables and actions. Then, there's the other stuff before the game started and any activities in the few days prior.

My understanding is that in many of the sport related transmission that's been seen, it looks like it has more do to with the activities surrounding the game and not the actual games. Having ice cream or pizza after the game is riskier than playing. At a tournament, watching other games in close proximity. Indoor training sessions. Social gatherings of the team. All things that have larger risks than actually playing, especially for baseball.

 

[Parker in NYC]

cruises will be the last thing to return.

Didn't one already try and fail (to no one's surprise)?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Some of us here were guessing spring maybe to see it possibly happen. Others I remember saying July or August of 2020.. then switching to September-October.. then probably November or by Christmas. We all saw how bad this was, don’t know how they could think that. Anyway, I still think that time frame of February is early with when people will be getting vaccinated but we will see.

There was never any chance in hell dcl was moving an inch before the spring

As you are saying: it will likely be mandatory vaccinations and that will take time

 

[DisneyCane]

I should have asked here, was the kid on your bother's team or the other one? Do the kids wear masks in the dugout or otherwise distance instead of sitting in the dugout? Do they wear masks when playing?

If the kid was on the other team, other than when he was at bat or on the bases he wasn't near anyone. An over abundance of caution might have the infielders and umpire isolate. But, it was outside and probably for short duration at least so they're likely fine.

If the kid was on his team, there's more to consider. Obviously the 9 kinds on the field aren't anywhere near each other. Depending on age, the kid in right field might never be near anyone ever. But, the dugout, even though it's outside, is a riskier proposition depending on more variables and actions. Then, there's the other stuff before the game started and any activities in the few days prior.

My understanding is that in many of the sport related transmission that's been seen, it looks like it has more do to with the activities surrounding the game and not the actual games. Having ice cream or pizza after the game is riskier than playing. At a tournament, watching other games in close proximity. Indoor training sessions. Social gatherings of the team. All things that have larger risks than actually playing, especially for baseball.

The kid was on my brother's team. On his team all the kids wear masks in the dugout AND distance and do wear them while playing. My brother had some brief, close outdoor contact with the kid (both wearing masks) but he still quarantined for 14 days out of an abundance of caution. I don't know if it was a true quarantine but he would only drive by himself and use contactless pickup. Basically, he made sure to not come into close contact with anybody. Being that his potential exposure was outdoors, a few feet away and for less than 2 minutes with both wearing masks the risk to him was pretty low.

 

[mmascari]

Not to mention the mindboggling deficit spending that has to lead to inflation eventually. If it doesn't then why not just eliminate taxes and print money for all Government spending? No, I'm not serious about eliminating taxes but why would any taxes need to be increased to pay for anything if trillions of dollars in new debt doesn't have an adverse effect?

MMT is an entire theory on why not all deficit spending leads to inflation and on why you still need to collect taxes to prevent inflation too.

Without trying to explain all of it, it has a lot to do with what the spending is on. It has more to do with how supply and demand impact prices. Assuming there's labor sitting around doing nothing, and the resources needed to do something have no other demand on them, then printing money to buy those things that nobody else wants shouldn't drive inflation at all. Supply was a glut and the increased demand causes no change in price.

When that's not true, and printing money is used to pay for something in demand with a constrained supply, then the increased demand causes the price to raise and you have inflation.

There's interaction between these too which makes it all more complicated. If buying up all that glut of supply causes supply of other things in demand to drop as suppliers switch what they're producing, then it's no longer buying something with a glut that nobody wants. Since it's reducing supply of something that was in demand and will cause the price of that to raise. Meaning you can't just buy it all and need to leave some unused as a buffer.

In the COVID example, we should be able to print money and use it to pay for services where demand has been completely eliminated with no issues. Assuming we want those service providers to be around when demand returns, and we'll need to stop paying them once actual demand returns.

For example, we could put a restriction in place that nobody can open a new movie theater (no new supply, freeze the quantity today), that nobody can go to a movie (not safe to sit in a closed space, drive normal demand to zero). Then, print money and buy every ticket that would have been purchased based on last year to make the now shutdown movie theater whole again. Some rules that they need to pay employees as if they worked without coming in and not getting different jobs, pay suppliers like they would have if open. It needs to prevent those things from moving to interact with other markets. Then, unwind it all once we allow natural demand to come back. This way the support spending is never competing with actual spending. Nobody is raising the price of a movie ticket because demand to get into a theater has both government and private spending. Using that method, we tax some of it back too, just like when real customers were buying too.

That doesn't solve everything. It freezes "movie theater supply" in one spot with no expansion and no contraction. Unwinding it and stopping the payments as soon as real demand competes is super important too.

 

[mmascari]

The kid was on my brother's team. On his team all the kids wear masks in the dugout AND distance and do wear them while playing. My brother had some brief, close outdoor contact with the kid (both wearing masks) but he still quarantined for 14 days out of an abundance of caution. I don't know if it was a true quarantine but he would only drive by himself and use contactless pickup. Basically, he made sure to not come into close contact with anybody. Being that his potential exposure was outdoors, a few feet away and for less than 2 minutes with both wearing masks the risk to him was pretty low.

Based on those descriptions, the doctors I know wouldn't have called any of those interactions a close contact requiring anything.

If it was my team (kids soccer), I still would have been mad though.

From a random internet poster on a random forum, he was totally good. Which is probably worth less than an emoji.

 

[Heppenheimer]

In other news, pending the expected FDA approval next week, I could receive my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine as early as the 14th of December...

... and no, I will not immediately head to Disney World.

 

[Lilofan]

In other news, pending the expected FDA approval next week, I could receive my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine as early as the 14th of December...

... and no, I will not immediately head to Disney World.

Good news and please advise if you have side effects.

 

[Heppenheimer]

Good news and please advise if you have side effects.

Will do.

 

[danlb_2000]

People weren’t going to do that either.

... but they did.

Some Americans Are Tragically Still Drinking Bleach As A Coronavirus ‘Cure’

It’s a potentially deadly mistake.

www.forbes.com

 

[danlb_2000]

Are you saying they should mandate mask wearing in your own home? LOL.

Delaware has pretty much done this. You are now required to wear a mask any time you are indoors with people beyond your immediately family.

 

[danlb_2000]

In other news, pending the expected FDA approval next week, I could receive my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine as early as the 14th of December...

... and no, I will not immediately head to Disney World.

Of course not..... you will wait until you get your second dose.