Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[mmascari]

Is herd immunity to COVID-19 possible? Experts increasingly say no.

The United States may never reach full herd immunity against COVID-19 experts say, but vaccination can tame the coronavirus.

www.usatoday.com

Well, that's just depressing. Not unexpected, but still depressing.

Everyday, I think I should just reschedule our trip. I'm less and less convinced we will have low enough levels for kids to no longer need mitigations and Disney to regain the prior value proposition before August. By next year, the kids will be vaccinated so even if levels are flu not measles, they should be OK.

 

[GoofGoof]

That's a lagging average. Yesterday, 2.2 million doses were administered in the US.
On 4/12, it was 2.5 million doses.

We have plateaued and the decline is starting.

I feel it hard here in New York -- Last Monday, it was 185,000 doses, yesterday just 145,000 doses.
Today, only 154,000 doses reported. 1 week ago: 220,000 doses administered.

So seeing a consistent 20-30% drop this week compared to last week in New York. And that seems common in other places.

From Bloomberg Tracker. The dark line is the 7 day moving average. Since around April 1 we crossed the 3M daily shots in the 7 day moving average and it’s fluctuated up to 3.4M but has been above 3M for weeks now. Due to the JnJ pause it would make sense we will see a drop off in doses. From the graph it’s not a huge drop off yet. Who knows what happens going forward. It makes sense that now that vaccines are open to everyone we will see a decline in daily doses but we are above 3M doses a day so it’s not like nobody is getting vaccinated.

 

[havoc315]

The price of Florida's general lack of mitigation and lack of aggressive vacinnation:

By June 1, New York is forecast to have 5 infections per 100,000 per day
Florida is estimated to have 15 infections per day per 100,000 people by June 1st

Translated for population.. New York is expected to be under 1,000 cases per day by June 1st (including untested infections), while Florida is still expected to have 3,000 cases per day.
The model predicts 30,000+ infections nationwide per day by June 1st... but if every state was vaccinating and mitigating, it would be around 10,000 by then.

 

[havoc315]

From Bloomberg Tracker. The dark line is the 7 day moving average. Since around April 1 we crossed the 3M daily shots in the 7 day moving average and it’s fluctuated up to 3.4M but has been above 3M for weeks now. Due to the JnJ pause it would make sense we will see a drop off in doses. From the graph it’s not a huge drop off yet. Who knows what happens going forward. It makes sense that now that vaccines are open to everyone we will see a decline in daily doses but we are above 3M doses a day so it’s not like nobody is getting vaccinated.

View attachment 550795

The drop off is about to accelerate. It's a lagging average. Notice the recent peaks are lower than the peaks from the last 2 weeks.

Hard to blame the loss of JNJ as long as there are tons of open appointments. We aren't having a supply shortage. And really, JNJ was barely part of the supply in most past weeks, it gave us 1 bump in late February and another bump for 1 week in late March/early April.

 

[mmascari]

The hits just keep coming.

New COVID-19 variant genome suggests potential resistance to antibodies

Scientists at the Texas A&M University Global Health Research Complex (GHRC) have identified a variant of the COVID-19 virus—"BV-1"—that could present a new challenge to public health.

medicalxpress.com

I need to stop reading sites besides wdwmagic.com.

 

[GoofGoof]

The drop off is about to accelerate. It's a lagging average. Notice the recent peaks are lower than the peaks from the last 2 weeks.

Hard to blame the loss of JNJ as long as there are tons of open appointments. We aren't having a supply shortage. And really, JNJ was barely part of the supply in most past weeks, it gave us 1 bump in late February and another bump for 1 week in late March/early April.

Right, it hasn’t dropped off much yet. It could start to drop off soon. We don’t know when. I think the vaccinations will continue to be more volatile with bigger days and smaller days vs a steady pace and that’s why the 7 day average is much more important. For example as we’ve gotten more into the working class demographics we are seeing people prefer Friday or weekend appointments to avoid missing work. We also haven’t seen a lot of states make a full effort to pull people in. That has to start soon.

 

[Horizons '83]

The hits just keep coming.

New COVID-19 variant genome suggests potential resistance to antibodies

Scientists at the Texas A&M University Global Health Research Complex (GHRC) have identified a variant of the COVID-19 virus—"BV-1"—that could present a new challenge to public health.

medicalxpress.com

I need to stop reading sites besides wdwmagic.com.

I'd stop reading them if I were you. If you want an opposing view check this NYT article on variants and how they have been messaged by many large media outlets.

Can the Covid Vaccine Protect Me Against Virus Variants? (Published 2021)

Vaccines do a good job of protecting us from coronavirus, but fear and confusion about the rise of variants have muddled the message. Here are answers to common questions.

www.nytimes.com

 

[yonafunu]

I'm worried now is anti-vaxx doesn't want pandemic end now as they don't want vaccines, we need to punish them for revenge to not get vaccine, my bet President Biden has do something with those vaccine hater losers. I want herd immunity to end pandemic and get back to normal.

The 25% people who don't want the vaccine will be slowly infected one day or another...the herd immunity will be there one day. And even with these 25% not vaccinated, we will not know any other big waves...just a very very low wave with small cases and deaths number. I think the only thing Fauci and co don't want is to announce a percentage needed for herd immunity, in fact we don't know clearly the proportion to obtained to reach herd immunity.

 

[Chi84]

I'd stop reading them if I were you. If you want an opposing view check this NYT article on variants and how they have been messaged by many large media outlets.

Can the Covid Vaccine Protect Me Against Virus Variants? (Published 2021)

Vaccines do a good job of protecting us from coronavirus, but fear and confusion about the rise of variants have muddled the message. Here are answers to common questions.

www.nytimes.com

That's a great article. It would be nice if everyone would read down to the part where efficacy is explained. I suspect there are a lot of people who believe a vaccine that is 70% effective means 30% of those vaccinated will get COVID. As the article explains, it's more like 1%. These vaccines are incredibly effective, even against the variants.

 

[DisneyFan32]

The 25% people who don't want the vaccine will be slowly infected one day or another...the herd immunity will be there one day. And even with these 25% not vaccinated, we will not know any other big waves...just a very very low wave with small cases and deaths number. I think the only thing Fauci and co don't want is to announce a percentage needed for herd immunity, in fact we don't know clearly the proportion to obtained to reach herd immunity.

So the pandemic will end in USA soon and get back to normal soon by July maybe?

 

[TheGuyThatMakesSwords]

I'm worried now is anti-vaxx doesn't want pandemic end now as they don't want vaccines, we need to punish them for revenge to not get vaccine, my bet President Biden has do something with those vaccine hater losers. I want herd immunity to end pandemic and get back to normal.

Not a direct reply... more a statement of Historical fact....

There are multiple ways to achieve Heard Immunity.
1) Successful Vaccination defense.. even if has to be repeated, and improved over time (consider FLU - we fight with it every year, yet in 1918 it killed between 17-100 million. Including two uncles that I never knew).
2) Massive die-off (consider Pneumonic plague).

Either way, what is LEFT of the heard has pretty much achieved Heard Immunity .

Pro or anti? Your choice. Just us... we have chosen option 1). The problem will end, one way or the other, and the Human Race will survive.

 

[havoc315]

The 25% people who don't want the vaccine will be slowly infected one day or another...the herd immunity will be there one day. And even with these 25% not vaccinated, we will not know any other big waves...just a very very low wave with small cases and deaths number. I think the only thing Fauci and co don't want is to announce a percentage needed for herd immunity, in fact we don't know clearly the proportion to obtained to reach herd immunity.

Careful with the polls. I suspect the number of anti-vax is actually a fair amount higher.

The polls undercount those who "don't trust government and don't trust science." -- We saw that in the last Presidential election, where Biden under performed the polls -- because the polls were failing to capture a certain segment of the population. For the same reason that political polls were off, vaccine polls are likely off by a similar degree. It was an effect from the people who don't trust science/government/media are also the people who disproportionately won't answer a poll. "The media is calling to ask me if I'm going to take the vaccine!?!?! Hell no, none of their business, I'm not answering their questions."

 

[Flugell]

I didn't mean that at all. I was just replying to your statement that it's effortless to wear a mask and you don't understand why anyone is opposed to it. I never meant to defend rule-breakers, but there are people, such as those with hearing impairments, who find it difficult to communicate when everyone is wearing a mask. That's not the only reason - just one example. It's fine if the masks are being used to control the spread of COVID, that's understandable. But it's hard to take when people say everyone should wear masks to show others they care about them or as some kind of signal of solidarity (and people have posted that here). From what you've said above, I think we agree that people should not act like donkeys when confronted with mitigation measures.

I think you are referring to my post.
Why can’t people wear masks to show solidarity and that people care, after all it is helping to prevent spread? It’s most certainly better than not wearing a mask because of a misguided/misinformed (in my opinion and the opinion of most scientists) adherence to personal preferences.
Hearing impairments is a legitimate reason to not wear “masks” but my friends who are deaf wear a clear visor so they are still complying with rules. We have not seen them in the flesh but mutual friends who have, say they also have clear visors so communication is still possible. So that debases that argument.
I have to say that the people who are acting like donkeys are not the ones who are doing whatever they can to end this pandemic but those who are not prepared to follow the advice. Maybe they are the ostriches rather than the donkeys as they stick their head in the sand and pretend everything is fine.
Over 3,000,000 dead worldwide and you choose to criticise someone for expressing solidarity in a physical, non threatening manner.

 

[DisneyFan32]

Is herd immunity to COVID-19 possible? Experts increasingly say no.

The United States may never reach full herd immunity against COVID-19 experts say, but vaccination can tame the coronavirus.

www.usatoday.com

Well, that's just depressing. Not unexpected, but still depressing.

Everyday, I think I should just reschedule our trip. I'm less and less convinced we will have low enough levels for kids to no longer need mitigations and Disney to regain the prior value proposition before August. By next year, the kids will be vaccinated so even if levels are flu not measles, they should be OK.

Are going to be back to normal like November 2019 before the virus pandemic? I'm scared the virus will get worse by winter/fall or something if we don't herd immunity because anti vaxxs.

 

[sullyinMT]

Right, it hasn’t dropped off much yet. It could start to drop off soon. We don’t know when. I think the vaccinations will continue to be more volatile with bigger days and smaller days vs a steady pace and that’s why the 7 day average is much more important. For example as we’ve gotten more into the working class demographics we are seeing people prefer Friday or weekend appointments to avoid missing work. We also haven’t seen a lot of states make a full effort to pull people in. That has to start soon.

Yes. All of this. Look at the last few weeks; late week numbers are always stronger. Our days of record-breaking Fridays and Saturdays may be over, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone.

All polling indicated that ~70% of American adults were a strong yes for the vaccine, and we might get anywhere between 10-20% more with proper messaging since they weren’t sure. That’s roughly 146 million 18+ in the firm yes column, but we are only at 131 as of the last update from the CDC (4/19). So 15 million American adults are still all but guaranteed to start their vaccine course, and I’m sure we would all love to see them get a shot sooner rather than later.

The time to find a way to pull that 10-20% (21-42 million) of adults along is now. While we have doses available, and before we start our good world citizen campaign of donor-lending vaccine.

Also, while I’m aware of the optics of approving adolescents for Pfizer just after a JnJ pause, I really hope the 12-15 year olds get their approval soon. And that Moderna has similar data to share for 12-17 in the not too distant future.

 

[yonafunu]

So the pandemic will end in USA soon and get back to normal soon by July maybe?

If the vaccine rollout doesn't decrease...i have bet with many of my friends that at the end of summer, the situation will go back to normal for North America and then Europe (little more complicated, without real borders...). For the rest of the world except Japan and NZ/Australia, i think this will take some time. I have cancelled my trip last year to Japan and WDW, i've just booked to end of November/early December for WDW. I'm convinced all the restrictions (or 90% of them) will be lift off before. I just can't wait the Canada/US border will open, i'm living in Montreal, at 45mn to the border... this summer all will be better for our both countries

 

[Chi84]

I think you are referring to my post.
Why can’t people wear masks to show solidarity and that people care, after all it is helping to prevent spread? It’s most certainly better than not wearing a mask because of a misguided/misinformed (in my opinion and the opinion of most scientists) adherence to personal preferences.
Hearing impairments is a legitimate reason to not wear “masks” but my friends who are deaf wear a clear visor so they are still complying with rules. We have not seen them in the flesh but mutual friends who have, say they also have clear visors so communication is still possible. So that debases that argument.
I have to say that the people who are acting like donkeys are not the ones who are doing whatever they can to end this pandemic but those who are not prepared to follow the advice. Maybe they are the ostriches rather than the donkeys as they stick their head in the sand and pretend everything is fine.
Over 3,000,000 dead worldwide and you choose to criticise someone for expressing solidarity in a physical, non threatening manner.

Not a criticism at all. It's a difference of opinion. I believe the only reason one should be mandated to wear a mask is to avoid the spread of COVID. If people choose to wear them as a form of solidarity, to show they care for others or to feel good about themselves, I have absolutely no issue with it.

I think you misunderstood what I said about those with hearing impairments. I didn't suggest that they were unable or even unwilling to wear masks as a means of stopping the virus. That's a straw man argument. I was responding to someone who said wearing masks is effortless. It is for some, but not for all.

 

[disneygeek90]

So the pandemic will end in USA soon and get back to normal soon by July maybe?

I don’t know why you want to pin a date of “normal” so much. At this point, who the heck knows. We’ve been dealing with this for 13 months. To think that anyone knows when “normal” is just isn’t possible. Hopefully we are toward the end, at least with protocols and masks and restrictions. You can’t pin it on a certain month or even season at this rate, there’s just too many unknowns.

 

[Patcheslee]

Husband's work will no longer require employees to wear masks in their factory. Unvaccinated people are recommended to continue to distance, but not required. Granted the employee count is only 20 thank God, and husband has had his first at least. Still couple weeks from his 2nd shot. Coincidentally the boss who made the decision finished vaccination 2 weeks ago. Makes me wonder who the rules were for.

 

[Patcheslee]

Sea World San Diego

open to out of state visitors, will require proof of covid vaccine or negative covid test within 72 hours.