Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[GoofGoof]

I read it simply as: As of now, WDW has no policy or plan to reduce social distancing.

Of course, that -could- change overnight. But it’s not like they’ve be in the dark. Mayor Demings consulted with the theme parks before his announced social distancing reduction. And even if they didn’t, they knew it would be coming eventually and could have had a plan ready to go. (And no, that wouldn’t be a secret plan known only to the most senior leadership. As the plan would require working with mid level operational management).

For whatever reason, WDW seems determined to move slower than anybody else. They announced Ratatouille for October, while Uni is opening Velociraptor in June. Uni brought back night entertainment months ago, not on the immediate horizon for WDW. Uni announced they are going ahead with their Halloween special events, silence from WDW.

Yes, things will eventually change at WDW. And perhaps as they see the rules relaxed EVERYWHERE else, they might speed up their change. But as of now, they seem to be living by Chapek’s statement of “social distancing and masks until the end of the year.”

That’s my point. Any plan Disney has for changing distancing at WDW hasn’t been socialized down to the operations people in Orlando. If it had we would likely already know about it. If there was a plan in place, senior management isn’t ready to share that yet with operations in Orlando. If the guys on the ground putting in the distancing markers were told to put in 3 foot ones every fan site including this one would have the story. If they tell the guys to delay the work without saying why that also becomes a story. Their only option is to go forward, even if they did plan to change it in a few weeks.

My gut feeling is they are slow playing it a little since DLR literally just opened and they want to be pretty consistent across the domestic parks. So if WDW went to 3 feet of distancing now they can’t and won’t do that in CA yet. We know that DLr had the option to open to out of state guests if they required proof of vaccination and they declined that. Could be partially driven by the desire to stay consistent. CA cases are looking really good (7 day average of daily cases under 5 per 100,000). Their cases are the equivalent of the US national total of 15,000 cases a day which is not far from Fauci’s target of 10,000 to remove masks and distancing. The CA governor has stated he thinks the state could be fully re-opened by June 15 with most or all restrictions lifted. It may be that Disney is looking at a mid-June timeframe to significantly roll back some major restrictions across both parks. If anything it may be the cases and vaccination rate in FL that gives them pause at that time. Let’s hope not.

 

[havoc315]

That’s why it will take time to determine. Right now Israel has some restrictions left so not herd immunity without any mitigation. I think what you do is keep dialing it back and see what the result is. It could turn out that herd immunity is already reached without any mitigation and with vaccination alone or it could be only due to the combo. That’s why the “plan” of reaching herd immunity before dialing back mitigation efforts is so flawed. You can and should start dialing things back before formally reaching herd immunity and monitor the impact.

Agreed. It’s also why you don’t just roll back all mitigation at once.
While I’m highly confident in the vaccines, and I do believe a vaccinated person could likely go about safely maskless in -most- situations, we must remember all the testing took place when masking was common.

So if a vaccine reduces your risk by 90%:
If in a low risk Pre-vaccine setting (say a small outdoor get together, or a very small indoor get together).. if the risk in that situation was (for example), 5% without masks and 1% with masks... then vaccination reduces the risk to 0.5% without masks and 0.1% with masks.
with or without masks, the risk is under 1%.

But now imagine a high risk situation — a crowded theater or church, people packed in, singing, high community spread so lots of people present likely are infected. Pre-vaccine Risk of infection without masks might be 50%. With masks, risk of infection might be 10%.
Now if you’re vaccinated... but the other factors remain the same, risk might be 5% without masks, 1% with masks.
Thus, given its such a high risk situation, even if the vaccine reduces your chance of infection by 90%, the extra protection of the mask may be valuable.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

Agreed. It’s also why you don’t just roll back all mitigation at once.
While I’m highly confident in the vaccines, and I do believe a vaccinated person could likely go about safely maskless in -most- situations, we must remember all the testing took place when masking was common.

So if a vaccine reduces your risk by 99%:
If in a low risk Pre-vaccine setting (say a small outdoor get together, or a very small indoor get together).. if the risk in that situation was (for example), 5% without masks and 1% with masks... then vaccination reduces the risk to 0.5% without masks and 0.1% with masks.
with or without masks, the risk is under 1%.

But now imagine a high risk situation — a crowded theater or church, people packed in, singing, high community spread so lots of people present likely are infected. Pre-vaccine Risk of infection without masks might be 50%. With masks, risk of infection might be 10%.
Now if you’re vaccinated... but the other factors remain the same, risk might be 5% without masks, 1% with masks.
Thus, given its such a high risk situation, even if the vaccine reduces your chance of infection by 90%, the extra protection of the mask may be valuable.

That's pretty much my thinking.

 

[DCBaker]

 

[havoc315]

That’s my point. Any plan Disney has for changing distancing at WDW hasn’t been socialized down to the operations people in Orlando.

If that’s true, that’s crazy. You can’t switch operations on a dime.

First off, whether to change distancing is a decision that can’t even be made without the operations people. It’s the operations people that can evaluate what levels of distancing and capacity are feasible. Bob Chapek doesn’t know the square footage of the queue and elevator at Astro Orbiter, know what the effect of a change of social distancing.

So if there has been no ongoing planning for ramping up capacity yet, then don’t expect any major changes for the next 6 months.

But I actually doubt that there “is no plan.”
There does appear to be a plan. More resorts are opening. FOTLK is coming back - modified. Valet parking is returning, 1 resort at a time.

So yes... there is already a plan for re-opening. It’s just a very very slow deliberate plan.
Whether there will be efforts to speed up the plan — that might happen, but we haven’t seen it yet.

If it had we would likely already know about it. If there was a plan in place, senior management isn’t ready to share that yet with operations in Orlando.

They couldn’t possibly create a plan without working with the operations people.

If the guys on the ground putting in the distancing markers were told to put in 3 foot ones every fan site including this one would have the story. If they tell the guys to delay the work without saying why that also becomes a story. Their only option is to go forward, even if they did plan to change it in a few weeks.

Nonsense. That’s a major waste of resources. They simply weren’t doing anything with the queue for FOTLK 3 weeks before open, there would be no reporter blasting a headline “ride that opens in 3 weeks doesn’t have social distancing queues!”

My gut feeling is they are slow playing it a little since DLR literally just opened and they want to be pretty consistent across the domestic parks.

That might indeed be the case. And consistent with international parks as well. They want to show French, Chinese and Japanese authorities that they are exercising extreme caution.

So if WDW went to 3 feet of distancing now they can’t and won’t do that in CA yet. We know that DLr had the option to open to out of state guests if they required proof of vaccination and they declined that. Could be partially driven by the desire to stay consistent. CA cases are looking really good (7 day average of daily cases under 5 per 100,000). Their cases are the equivalent of the US national total of 15,000 cases a day which is not far from Fauci’s target of 10,000 to remove masks and distancing. The CA governor has stated he thinks the state could be fully re-opened by June 15 with most or all restrictions lifted. It may be that Disney is looking at a mid-June timeframe to significantly roll back some major restrictions across both parks. If anything it may be the cases and vaccination rate in FL that gives them pause at that time. Let’s hope not.

 

[SorcererMC]

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but at-home testing is getting rolled out.

Self-Testing At Home or Anywhere

Self-tests for COVID-19 give rapid results and can be taken anywhere.

www.cdc.gov

 

[GoofGoof]

If that’s true, that’s crazy. You can’t switch operations on a dime.

First off, whether to change distancing is a decision that can’t even be made without the operations people. It’s the operations people that can evaluate what levels of distancing and capacity are feasible. Bob Chapek doesn’t know the square footage of the queue and elevator at Astro Orbiter, know what the effect of a change of social distancing.

So if there has been no ongoing planning for ramping up capacity yet, then don’t expect any major changes for the next 6 months.

But I actually doubt that there “is no plan.”
There does appear to be a plan. More resorts are opening. FOTLK is coming back - modified. Valet parking is returning, 1 resort at a time.

So yes... there is already a plan for re-opening. It’s just a very very slow deliberate plan.
Whether there will be efforts to speed up the plan — that might happen, but we haven’t seen it yet.



They couldn’t possibly create a plan without working with the operations people.



Nonsense. That’s a major waste of resources. They simply weren’t doing anything with the queue for FOTLK 3 weeks before open, there would be no reporter blasting a headline “ride that opens in 3 weeks doesn’t have social distancing queues!”





That might indeed be the case. And consistent with international parks as well. They want to show French, Chinese and Japanese authorities that they are exercising extreme caution.

You obviously don’t work for a large corporation. That’s exactly how it works. There is zero reason why the c suite execs making this kind of call involve the operations people down to the level of a guy putting stickers on the ground. It just doesn’t work that way. If they have a plan it won’t be changing on a dime. I assume any change would take several weeks at least to implement and maybe closer to a month since they have to alter some physical spaces and a ton of signs. The PR people and probably investor relations will obviously want to make sure they coordinate a public announcement and then once they have a plan they go public. The guy putting the stickers on the ground moat likely finds out when you and I do. His boss may find out a little sooner.

 

[Jrb1979]

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6009840

Looks like Canada and many European countries are going to require proof of vaccination for travel.

 

[GoofGoof]

Here’s the final vaccine tally through April:

 

[danlb_2000]

You obviously don’t work for a large corporation. That’s exactly how it works. There is zero reason why the c suite execs making this kind of call involve the operations people down to the level of a guy putting stickers on the ground. It just doesn’t work that way. If they have a plan it won’t be changing on a dime. I assume any change would take several weeks at least to implement and maybe closer to a month since they have to alter some physical spaces and a ton of signs. The PR people and probably investor relations will obviously want to make sure they coordinate a public announcement and then once they have a plan they go public. The guy putting the stickers on the ground moat likely finds out when you and I do. His boss may find out a little sooner.

I was about to make that same response. I used to work for a company the size of Disney and there were many days when I had to wonder how this company got to be as big an successful as it was.

 

[GoofGoof]

1.4M new first shots yesterday. The pace is holding still. The 7 day daily average for new first shots is holding at 1.1M a day. In the next few weeks we should see a ramp up of 2nd doses as the peak of new first doses was beginning to middle of April after deliveries reached 4M doses a day. The next big milestone will be when kids 12-15 get approval for Pfizer. The FDA has had more than enough time to review so an announcement should happen any day. That may cause a temporary bump up in daily new first shots, but it shouldn’t cause appointment scarcity again since we are building a surplus of 7-10M doses a week. In theory every kid 12-15 could get the vaccine this week and we would still have a surplus since we have almost 70M unused doses right now.

 

[DisneyFan32]

Why this is going down? Anti-vaxx cause this or not? By way is future variants will end vaccines I'm scared of this.

 

[GoofGoof]

Why this is going down? Anti-vaxx cause this or not? I'm scared of this.

It’s all good. keep the faith my friend. We are doing great

 

[GoofGoof]

I was about to make that same response. I used to work for a company the size of Disney and there were many days when I had to wonder how this company got to be as big an successful as it was.

Disney is famous for bureaucracy too. It’s part of the culture there.

 

[DisneyCane]

Agreed. It’s also why you don’t just roll back all mitigation at once.
While I’m highly confident in the vaccines, and I do believe a vaccinated person could likely go about safely maskless in -most- situations, we must remember all the testing took place when masking was common.

So if a vaccine reduces your risk by 90%:
If in a low risk Pre-vaccine setting (say a small outdoor get together, or a very small indoor get together).. if the risk in that situation was (for example), 5% without masks and 1% with masks... then vaccination reduces the risk to 0.5% without masks and 0.1% with masks.
with or without masks, the risk is under 1%.

But now imagine a high risk situation — a crowded theater or church, people packed in, singing, high community spread so lots of people present likely are infected. Pre-vaccine Risk of infection without masks might be 50%. With masks, risk of infection might be 10%.
Now if you’re vaccinated... but the other factors remain the same, risk might be 5% without masks, 1% with masks.
Thus, given its such a high risk situation, even if the vaccine reduces your chance of infection by 90%, the extra protection of the mask may be valuable.

I can't swear to the exact number without going back and researching but transmission from an infected spouse to the other spouse living in the same household was something like 37%. My accountant's wife was symptomatic and slept in the same bed for a few days until they realized it might be COVID and she got tested. My accountant tested negative on several tests and an antibody test to determine if she got it from him asymptomatically.

I don't think there is any public situation where the risk would be 50%. Maybe it could be that high for medical personnel without any PPE and a symptomatic COVID patient but not in a theatre or church.

 

[havoc315]

You obviously don’t work for a large corporation. That’s exactly how it works. There is zero reason why the c suite execs making this kind of call involve the operations people down to the level of a guy putting stickers on the ground.

nonsense. The c-suite executive isn’t involved one way or another with putting stickers on the ground.

But you better believe the entire operations management structure is involved in planning.

Imagine Bob Chapek, without involving operations people, decided “we are re-opening Fantasmic tomorrow.”

hmmm... The Fantasmic lake is drained. One of the barges is missing. The cast needs to be recalled, rehearsals needed. Pyrotechnics need to be stocked. Re-starting something like Fantasmic would easily take 2-3 months, if not more.

In other words, this isn’t a decision the C-suite can make without involving middle management.

And it’s not just operations. Finance department evaluates the cost projections of expanding capacity vs revenue projections. Personnel departments work on making sure the right staffing is in place.

Marketing department and Corporate communications work on media issues far in advance.

etc, etc.

Plans are made months in advance. The planning stages involve hundreds of people in different departments.

It’s not everyone just sitting around waiting on Chapek to change course, and then everything changes quickly.

Everything we have seen suggests there is indeed a plan — and it’s a very slow plan.
If there was a plan to eliminate social distancing within the next 2 weeks, the sticker-placers might not know about it. But the Animal Kingdom Operations Manager would know, and he wouldn’t be wasting time assigning staff to place social distancing stickers.

 

[havoc315]

I can't swear to the exact number without going back and researching but transmission from an infected spouse to the other spouse living in the same household was something like 37%. My accountant's wife was symptomatic and slept in the same bed for a few days until they realized it might be COVID and she got tested. My accountant tested negative on several tests and an antibody test to determine if she got it from him asymptomatically.

I don't think there is any public situation where the risk would be 50%. Maybe it could be that high for medical personnel without any PPE and a symptomatic COVID patient but not in a theatre or church.

There have been some super spreader events where 50%+ of people present got infected.

 

[GhostHost1000]

Like when Uni brought back night entertainment months ago, it pressured WDW to do the same?

Let me rephrase that...when Uni removes more restrictions and has more paying guests in their parks than Disney, then Disney would I think be more pressured to make changes as well.

Disney will be last though to make any change just because of PR image

 

[GoofGoof]

nonsense. The c-suite executive isn’t involved one way or another with putting stickers on the ground.

But you better believe the entire operations management structure is involved in planning.

Imagine Bob Chapek, without involving operations people, decided “we are re-opening Fantasmic tomorrow.”

hmmm... The Fantasmic lake is drained. One of the barges is missing. The cast needs to be recalled, rehearsals needed. Pyrotechnics need to be stocked. Re-starting something like Fantasmic would easily take 2-3 months, if not more.

In other words, this isn’t a decision the C-suite can make without involving middle management.

And it’s not just operations. Finance department evaluates the cost projections of expanding capacity vs revenue projections. Personnel departments work on making sure the right staffing is in place.

Marketing department and Corporate communications work on media issues far in advance.

etc, etc.

Plans are made months in advance. The planning stages involve hundreds of people in different departments.

It’s not everyone just sitting around waiting on Chapek to change course, and then everything changes quickly.

Everything we have seen suggests there is indeed a plan — and it’s a very slow plan.
If there was a plan to eliminate social distancing within the next 2 weeks, the sticker-placers might not know about it. But the Animal Kingdom Operations Manager would know, and he wouldn’t be wasting time assigning staff to place social distancing stickers.

You are literally making things up to argue about. When did I say anything about Bob Chapek deciding to re-open Fantasmic tomorrow. I get it you don’t like when anyone disagrees with you so I again will just leave it as we can agree to disagree. I don’t see the fact that they are putting 6 foot stickers out for a show today that opens in 3 weeks as a sign that they definitely won’t change the distancing policy for a long time. It may change, it may not, but I wouldn’t put any stock in those stickers as a definitive sign that it won’t happen.

 

[danlb_2000]

nonsense. The c-suite executive isn’t involved one way or another with putting stickers on the ground.

But you better believe the entire operations management structure is involved in planning.

Imagine Bob Chapek, without involving operations people, decided “we are re-opening Fantasmic tomorrow.”

hmmm... The Fantasmic lake is drained. One of the barges is missing. The cast needs to be recalled, rehearsals needed. Pyrotechnics need to be stocked. Re-starting something like Fantasmic would easily take 2-3 months, if not more.

In other words, this isn’t a decision the C-suite can make without involving middle management.

And it’s not just operations. Finance department evaluates the cost projections of expanding capacity vs revenue projections. Personnel departments work on making sure the right staffing is in place.

Marketing department and Corporate communications work on media issues far in advance.

etc, etc.

Plans are made months in advance. The planning stages involve hundreds of people in different departments.

It’s not everyone just sitting around waiting on Chapek to change course, and then everything changes quickly.

Everything we have seen suggests there is indeed a plan — and it’s a very slow plan.
If there was a plan to eliminate social distancing within the next 2 weeks, the sticker-placers might not know about it. But the Animal Kingdom Operations Manager would know, and he wouldn’t be wasting time assigning staff to place social distancing stickers.

Decision making in a large company like Disney can be very siloed. There could be a low level operations team charged with getting Lion King ready to open following Disney's current COVID rules. At the same time there could be high level operations people that are talking about changing the rules at some point in the near future. Until all the decisions have been made and the new rules are made, there is no reason to stop the people that are currently setting up Lion King.