Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[matt9112]

I will not win friends with this one.... based on newest CDC guidelines for fully vaccinated human interactions?

I WANT a US approved "proof of vaccination" mechanism. And I want WDW to use it.


"All personal opinion - I'm not necessarily right, no one else is necessarily wrong.
Post immediately deleted, if hate mail arises."

Has anything like that ever been donr for any pandemic before ever? Once enough people are vacinated the virus will burn itself out...it simply won't spread like you think it does.... so even if x amount of people are not vacinated they are not inherently increasing overall risk.

 

[matt9112]

We're trying to talk them into a child care center here since a large portion is separate from the manufacturing floor and accessible from the main entrance. There aren't enough 0-4yo places in town, usually a wait list to get in one. Company already has one facility for their main factory just 20 miles north of here and they have less employees.

Sounds cool. Childcare is an arm and a leg. I was never able to afford it.

 

[correcaminos]

The pandemic has created a duality of risk....the office based workplaces can work from there bedroom and completely isolate (if you desire) and still cash that check. The other half of the country had to walk out into it every day. Or you know dont work. Although i make good money relatively my job is still field based there is no way to work from home. However i haven't sat inside and locked my doors. I have flown around the cointry and continued to live life relatively normally.

I don't understand why you feel the need to say this. Like you're better or something for ignoring guidelines. My husband's job cannot always be done from home and went in. Because of that he actually avoided people as to not make others more at risk.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Actually, no, you're wrong and @CaptainAmerica is correct. There are several places in the country, including New York and California, where religious services were specifically targeted with restrictions that were significantly more harsh than any other type of gathering. This has resulted in multiple lawsuits and several cases going all the way to the Supreme Court. In at least two instances that I am aware of, the Supreme Court has already issued injunctions requiring the jurisdictions to allow religious services to resume because religious institutions were being unfairly discriminated against. When churches are closed but strip clubs are open -- which has been the case in many jurisdictions -- then, yes, it's the religious content and not the behavior that is being discriminated against.

Even if religious services were not singled out anywhere, what I said is still true.

You can't say "all fruit is banned" and then claim "ah, but we never banned apples."

 

[DisneyCane]

Agreed. And now they’re dropping mask mandates all over the place at exactly the wrong time.

The CDC's own study that somebody posted here the other day concluded that not having a mask mandate led to less than a 2% increase in daily cases after 100 days. Not exactly the catastrophe that some think it is to drop them.

It makes perfect sense to require them in close contact, longish duration situations like getting a haircut or standing in a queue at WDW. I completely understand why WDW requires them outdoors because an indoor only requirement would be a nightmare to enforce so it is easier to have a property wide policy.

Once two weeks have passed after every adult has had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated, all government imposed restrictions need to be lifted and businesses need to be absolved of any liability. Assuming Biden's promise of every adult who wants to be vaccinated being able to do so by the end of May is talking about first doses of the two-dose vaccines, this lifting of restrictions should happen by the middle of July.

 

[DisneyCane]

At this point anyone who qualifies, is near or can get to a population center should be able to schedule an appointment. I was in Publix this morning (retirement community) and they had a table set up to make appointments, looked like you could have got a vaccine on the spot.
The FEMA site is ramping up to 4000 a day in Tampa and the popups they are running are delivering 3K a day to several smaller communities. I think it is the same for Orange county or will be soon.
Glad he lowered it, I think another week and it might come down 5 more.

It depends on the county and what the elderly population is in relation to the total population. I think Desantis mentioned the other day that St. John's county had 80% of 65+ vaccinated. Palm Beach County is at about 55%. Palm Beach county is almost 30% 65+ which is much higher than most counties in the country and the Publix appointments disappear there faster than most places.

Adding 55-64 is about 2.9 million eligible people. Using 70% acceptance, that's a little over 2 million vaccine seekers and a little more than 360k in that group have already been vaccinated (probably lots of health care workers). Opening 55-64 probably adds about 1.65 million appointment seekers so figure the lowering to 60 adds a little over 800k. That's around 1.5 weeks worth of allocation based on this week's allocation so I'd guess Desantis will open 55+ after two weeks unless the allocation accelerates.

The state registration site is taking pre-registration signups now I believe so when your group is ready you only have to set the appointment. I think we will see the age drop quickly and other essential workers added in as the age drops. A 20 yo grocery clerk could be in the same group as their 45yo co-worker.

The pre-registration only works for State/County supported sites. For the pharmacy appointments, you have to book on the pharmacy website and they are all separate. It's a little cumbersome but as supply and availability of appointments increases, it won't really be an issue.

 

[Tom P.]

Here is some good news to start the day: a new laboratory study shows that the Pfizer vaccine has the ability to neutralize all the variants we are currently worried about, including the South African variant.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ovid-shot-neutralizes-brazilian-strain-in-lab

Obviously this still needs to be studied outside the lab, but it is promising news!

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Here is some good news to start the day: a new laboratory study shows that the Pfizer vaccine has the ability to neutralize all the variants we are currently worried about, including the South African variant.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ovid-shot-neutralizes-brazilian-strain-in-lab

Obviously this still needs to be studied outside the lab, but it is promising news!

Get rekt, variants.

 

[DisneyCane]

Here is some good news to start the day: a new laboratory study shows that the Pfizer vaccine has the ability to neutralize all the variants we are currently worried about, including the South African variant.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ovid-shot-neutralizes-brazilian-strain-in-lab

Obviously this still needs to be studied outside the lab, but it is promising news!

The negative speculative reporting about the vaccines and the effect on the variants needs to stop so this article is a breath of fresh air. My mom is fully vaccinated and now the click bait media has her worried about variants to the point where I almost yelled at her to get a grip.

She was deathly afraid of COVID before being vaccinated to the point that she wouldn't visit my Dad when he was dying in the hospital (from a brain hemorrhage completely unrelated to COVID). She looked more afraid of being offered the opportunity WITH an N95 mask to wear than she would have been if somebody held a gun to her head.

Getting vaccinated seemed to allay her fears but after all the reports about "maybe the vaccines won't be effective against variants" she isn't comfortable dining OUTDOORS at a restaurant.

To the media members who are hell bent on reporting everything in a way that tries to maximize the duration of restrictions and the "new normal" way of doing things, please stop. You are doing more harm than good.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

The negative speculative reporting about the vaccines and the effect on the variants needs to stop so this article is a breath of fresh air. My mom is fully vaccinated and now the click bait media has her worried about variants to the point where I almost yelled at her to get a grip.

She was deathly afraid of COVID before being vaccinated to the point that she wouldn't visit my Dad when he was dying in the hospital (from a brain hemorrhage completely unrelated to COVID). She looked more afraid of being offered the opportunity WITH an N95 mask to wear than she would have been if somebody held a gun to her head.

Getting vaccinated seemed to allay her fears but after all the reports about "maybe the vaccines won't be effective against variants" she isn't comfortable dining OUTDOORS at a restaurant.

To the media members who are hell bent on reporting everything in a way that tries to maximize the duration of restrictions and the "new normal" way of doing things, please stop. You are doing more harm than good.

Amen. My wife was late into her pregnancy when COVID hit and the fear peddling about an infant in Connecticut who died with (but not from) COVID was a disaster for her mental health.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Interesting. First time I’ve seen anyone quantify a vaccine percentage as the gateway to remove the mask mandates. In theory if the vaccine rollout progresses as planned and enough people take the vaccine there is a good chance they hit that percentage by the end of April. Before anyone gets too excited, that doesn’t mean WDW will relax their mask mandates at the same time. Disney Springs opened with a full mask rule weeks before Orange County passed a county wide mask mandate. It’s possible (likely?) Disney will keep a mask mandate longer than the county, but it’s another step towards eventually relaxing the rule. It could also mean local competitors will relax mask rules and put pressure on Disney to follow.

...yep...cause it’s stupid.

In such a heavy tourist area I am not sure tying masks mandates to local vaccination levels is such a good idea.

Prolly not...that would be stupid.

I agree. There is a big difference between dropping the mask mandate in the county based on the vaccination percentage of the local residents and dropping it at Disney, which is bringing together locals and tourists from various places.

Yep...it seems kinda stupid

 

[TokyoMiki]

And now they’re dropping mask mandates all over the place

i love it.

keep it going

 

[ABQ]

Something to keep an eye on, the NYC area has now plateaued in case numbers, it’s the only area of the US where that’s happening. It suggests there might be a varient surge starting there. NY and NJ have the highest amount of new cases per capita in the country.

Some weirdness going on in NY. I drilled into the top 18 counties by case count, so not just in the metro area of the 5 boroughs, but further out as well and all of them are flatlining on a 7 day trend. Daily, an uptick 2 days ago and down 1 day. Crossing my fingers it's some sort of lab issue causing this trend, but more time will tell.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Looking at the pdf report today, the percentage of fatalities that were 65 and over is now up to 84%. Another 11% are 55-64. Doing some very advanced math, 95% of all COVID fatalities in FL were people 55 and over.

While the supply of vaccines is limited, I don't know how you can argue that people shouldn't be prioritized by age. Let's say for the elderly there is an acceptance rate of 85%. That means that by vaccinating all 65+ who want to be you will eliminate 70% of the fatalities and if you expanded that to 55+ you'd eliminate 80%.

In terms of population, you can eliminate 70% of fatalities by vaccinating 18% of the population (21% eligible) and you can eliminate 80% of the fatalities by vaccinating 30% of the population (35% eligible).

Those percentages vaccinated are less than half (far less in the 65+ case) than it takes to get to herd immunity. It makes far more sense to me to target all available doses at these populations which are statistically the most likely to end up as fatalities instead of using them on young teachers.

“And still...she persisted”

You can shout about “only old people!!” As long as you want. That’s not what has or will happened.

“Arms out, shut up”

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Why would the Reedy Creek Improvement District suddenly get involved? They do not have any public health authority.

Reedy creek has the most power of any local jurisdiction (not including tribal) in the United States...

But nobody with a name tag has any business in public health policy.

No thankie

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Our governor (pressured by other Republicans after the Texas announcement) released a target today for removing masks and other restrictions. He targeted a caseload of 50 daily cases per 100,000 population (about 30% of where we're at today). At the current rate of decline, that would be 10-12 weeks from now, but predicting the future has been a fool's errand. Hopefully vaccination speeds up that timeline and new variants don't make it worse.

His announcement seemed to irritate people on both sides of the political spectrum, so it's probably a reasonable target be my estimation. It's certainly interesting to live in a state with a non-Trump, republican governor.

DeWine?

 

[WondersOfLife]

The pandemic has created a duality of risk....the office based workplaces can work from there bedroom and completely isolate (if you desire) and still cash that check. The other half of the country had to walk out into it every day. Or you know dont work. Although i make good money relatively my job is still field based there is no way to work from home. However i haven't sat inside and locked my doors. I have flown around the cointry and continued to live life relatively normally.

.........Alright?

 

[tpac24]

The pandemic has created a duality of risk....the office based workplaces can work from there bedroom and completely isolate (if you desire) and still cash that check. The other half of the country had to walk out into it every day. Or you know dont work. Although i make good money relatively my job is still field based there is no way to work from home. However i haven't sat inside and locked my doors. I have flown around the cointry and continued to live life relatively normally.

I don't understand why you feel the need to say this. Like you're better or something for ignoring guidelines. My husband's job cannot always be done from home and went in. Because of that he actually avoided people as to not make others more at risk.

@helenabear I could be wrong but I don't think he thinks that at all. I live in a state that is pretty open. Kids are in school , stores and restaurants have no real capacity, no state mask mandate but most wear one anyway so we have been living life as normal. I don't think I am better than anyone but I am grateful for my states sensible leadership .

 

[mgf]

Any states down to 45 yet?

Asking for a friend. (Ok, it's me, I'm the friend. Dammit, I just want the thing.)

It is rumored Indiana will drop to 45 this week (and possibly 40 by end of this week or next).

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

@helenabear I could be wrong but I don't think he thinks that at all. I live in a state that is pretty open. Kids are in school , stores and restaurants have no real capacity, no state mask mandate but most wear one anyway so we have been living life as normal. I don't think I am better than anyone but I am grateful for my states sensible leadership .

Which state?