Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Is this a new goal post? I thought the positivity had to be going down for two weeks before going to the next phase. But for FL, it has gone up for two weeks.

Do you have a source for this new benchmark of absolute positivity that has to be met? 4%? 5%? 10%?

Why have standards when people are bored and want to just go ahead and do what they want?

Like Spartacus, we are “where we were always going to be...”

But don’t worry - it dies when it gets warm, right?

 

[GoofGoof]

Is this a new goal post? I thought the positivity had to be going down for two weeks before going to the next phase. But for FL, it has gone up for two weeks.

Do you have a source for this new benchmark of absolute positivity that has to be met? 4%? 5%? 10%?

I think it’s about time we just tear the goal posts down. What’s the point of pretending that statistics matter? Things are opening up and there’s no stopping that. At this point we’re too far down the path so we just let it ride and hope by dumb luck it all works out.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I think it’s about time we just tear the goal posts down. What’s the point of pretending that statistics matter? Things are opening up and there’s no stopping that. At this point we’re too far down the path so we just let it ride and hope by dumb luck it all works out.

And if you had told me on March 15th that it would have come down to “dumb luck”....I wouldn’t have doubted you for a second.

Bad leadership is very predictable.

 

[robhedin]

Why have standards when people are bored and want to just go ahead and do what they want?

Sadly, this is probably closer to truth than it should be.

Most Americans (in general and in my opinion) tend towards instant gratification and more towards surface knowledge rather than deep understanding. Personally, I think the messaging from leadership from the beginning was flawed to enable really long term controls. When people didn't see 100's of thousands of people dying all around them, they started to ask why are they going through this? Never mind the *reasons* for those deaths not occurring. I believe Gov Cuomo said a few weeks ago that they made mistakes paying so much attention to the models at the time, for example.

Hopefully the people in charge have access to more data that I do and are making better and more informed decisions. But regardless, we are where we are today.

 

[imallearsgurl]

False. It was controlled by very intense health measures that stopped it. It did not fizzle out as you say. Here is just one of a million articles that say the same thing. From Harvard.

Seasonality of SARS-CoV-2: Will COVID-19 go away on its own in warmer weather?

Marc Lipsitch, DPhil Professor of Epidemiology and Director, Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (tl;dr) Probably not. Several people, including the …

ccdd.hsph.harvard.edu

Full disclosure, I'm a finance type by trade and don't pretend to be remotely qualified in the area of epidemiology (or science in general).

However, in the grand tradition of following the money, Harvard may not be the most objective source of information, particularly when it comes to a pandemic that originated in the same country that is throwing a lot of money in their direction. I'm not commenting on whether the content of the article is accurate (or whether there are 50 other sources that came to similar conclusions), but reiterating that this article came "from Harvard" probably doesn't have the weight that you think it has.

(The below aren't the sources of news that I typically use, but I intentionally linked to their reporting on this topic to show that this is not something that has only been reported by sources that tend to be dismissed as "fringe" on these boards.)

Grand jury indicts Harvard prof for lying about China funding

Charging documents say Charles Lieber had a relationship with the Wuhan University of Technology while also chairing Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry.

www.politico.com

Harvard, Yale Accused Of Failing To Report Hundreds Of Millions In Foreign Donations

The Ivy League schools have been singled out in a federal crackdown on institutions of higher learning for allegedly not reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign donations.

www.npr.org

 

[DisneyDebRob]

Full disclosure, I'm a finance type by trade and don't pretend to be remotely qualified in the area of epidemiology (or science in general).

However, in the grand tradition of following the money, Harvard may not be the most objective source of information, particularly when it comes to a pandemic that originated in the same country that is throwing a lot of money in their direction. I'm not commenting on whether the content of the article is accurate (or whether there are 50 other sources that came to similar conclusions), but reiterating that this article came "from Harvard" probably doesn't have the weight that you think it has.

(The below aren't the sources of news that I typically use, but I intentionally linked to their reporting on this topic to show that this is not something that has only been reported by sources that tend to be dismissed as "fringe" on these boards.)

Grand jury indicts Harvard prof for lying about China funding

Charging documents say Charles Lieber had a relationship with the Wuhan University of Technology while also chairing Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry.

www.politico.com

Harvard, Yale Accused Of Failing To Report Hundreds Of Millions In Foreign Donations

The Ivy League schools have been singled out in a federal crackdown on institutions of higher learning for allegedly not reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign donations.

www.npr.org

I did not share the link because it was from Harvard. As you said and I also mentioned, there are thousands of links saying the same thing. Most likely it was one of the links at the top of the page and I linked it. As long as the source is not far left or right, I’m usually good with it.
I’m sure if we all had time, we could find something bad being reported from every news source in the world. When you have most reporting the same thing, from epidemiologists and doctors, it’s not a bad thing to believe in it.

 

[GoofGoof]

Full disclosure, I'm a finance type by trade and don't pretend to be remotely qualified in the area of epidemiology (or science in general).

However, in the grand tradition of following the money, Harvard may not be the most objective source of information, particularly when it comes to a pandemic that originated in the same country that is throwing a lot of money in their direction. I'm not commenting on whether the content of the article is accurate (or whether there are 50 other sources that came to similar conclusions), but reiterating that this article came "from Harvard" probably doesn't have the weight that you think it has.

(The below aren't the sources of news that I typically use, but I intentionally linked to their reporting on this topic to show that this is not something that has only been reported by sources that tend to be dismissed as "fringe" on these boards.)

Grand jury indicts Harvard prof for lying about China funding

Charging documents say Charles Lieber had a relationship with the Wuhan University of Technology while also chairing Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry.

www.politico.com

Harvard, Yale Accused Of Failing To Report Hundreds Of Millions In Foreign Donations

The Ivy League schools have been singled out in a federal crackdown on institutions of higher learning for allegedly not reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign donations.

www.npr.org

Harvard has a $40B+ endowment and growing. A few hundred million in foreign donations is like the $10 bill I give the bell services guy when he brings my bags up.

I don’t have a dog in this race and have no affiliation or allegiance to Harvard (Outside of the one year I added Ryan Fitzpatrick to my Fantasy Football team when my starting QB got hurt).

 

[LuvtheGoof]

I did not share the link because it was from Harvard. As you said and I also mentioned, there are thousands of links saying the same thing. Most likely it was one of the links at the top of the page and I linked it. As long as the source is not far left or right, I’m usually good with it.
I’m sure if we all had time, we could find something bad being reported from every news source in the world. When you have most reporting the same thing, from epidemiologists and doctors, it’s not a bad thing to believe in it.

Just a question. Are all of these links actually referencing only a few actual studies? Are they regurgitating the same data that was reported elsewhere, so it simply looks like a lot of different sources, but only a limited number? I do know that a lot of news organizations simply take something already reported, and state it over again, even without any new information. Anyway, just a question - I'm not questioning whether or not these are from a few sources, just asking if that may be the case.

 

[DisneyCane]

Sadly, this is probably closer to truth than it should be.

Most Americans (in general and in my opinion) tend towards instant gratification and more towards surface knowledge rather than deep understanding. Personally, I think the messaging from leadership from the beginning was flawed to enable really long term controls. When people didn't see 100's of thousands of people dying all around them, they started to ask why are they going through this? Never mind the *reasons* for those deaths not occurring. I believe Gov Cuomo said a few weeks ago that they made mistakes paying so much attention to the models at the time, for example.

Hopefully the people in charge have access to more data that I do and are making better and more informed decisions. But regardless, we are where we are today.

The most important data points are the active hospitalizations for COVID-19, active ICU beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, available hospital beds and available ICU beds. The entire goal of "mitigation" as announced by Dr. Fauci at the beginning of the "15 days to slow the spread" was to flatten the curve and avoid overwhelming the health care system.

There was no suggestion from him or other health care experts that flattening the curve would lead to less cases or less deaths over the course of the pandemic. All of the graphics shown were to flatten the peak and spread the infections out to keep everything below the threshold where the health care system couldn't handle the patient load.

Since the data from every country clearly shows what demographics are at the highest risk of dying if they become infected, a secondary goal is to try and keep the most vulnerable from becoming infected. By far, the most vulnerable, are residents of nursing homes. In Florida, if the virus had been kept out of nursing homes completely there would literally be half the deaths in the state from COVID-19. After nursing home residents it is essentially the older you are, the higher the risk.

In the 45-54 age group, the mortality rate of documented cases is 0.9%, 35-44 is 0.44%, 25-35 is 0.15%. 24 and under there has been 1 fatality which makes the rate essentially 0%. Depending on the number of asymptomatic or otherwise undocumented cases, these rates will all go down somewhat.

Based on the antibody testing, the 35-64 age group is showing a little over 4% have antibodies. It is higher for the younger age groups. For a rough estimate, if we use 4% on the population of Florida, that would mean there have really been 859,000 infections vs. 65,779 Florida residents with documented cases. If the antibody testing is truly representative and the false positive rate is relatively low, that means all the mortality rates can be divided by 13. Even if you cut that in half, it would make the 45-54 age group rate 0.14%.

The point being that anybody under 55 is at a very low risk of dying if they get infected and the older you are past that rate it starts to get to a pretty high risk when compared to other respiratory viruses. The older you are and the more underlying health conditions you have, the more precautions you should take not to get infected.

The bottom line is that as long as the hospitals have capacity, there is no reason to back off on the reopening plans. There is more than enough information about who is at more risk for people to make personal decisions on what precautions they want to take. Especially since the Phase 1 and Phase 2 plans have a lot of social distancing and other protective measures in place.

For instance, my mom who is in her mid 70s and has CLL (which makes here immunocompromised) is staying at home except for necessary doctors appointments and I (or other family members from outside of the household) only visit with her outdoors and from 10 feet or more away. She will continue to take those precautions until the outbreak ends either through a vaccine or some other means. However, as long as the hospital capacity can handle a potential spike, there is no reason that I can't go to a restaurant, movie or WDW.

If they were going to come up with some kind of infection rate metric when they released the phased reopening plan, it should have been based on weekly, random sample studies that included a consistent percentage of people with COVID like symptoms. The positive rate of the testing is very variable because a lot depends on the characteristics of the population being tested.

They could make the positive percentage look good by doing 100,000 tests per day in Florida and offering $20 to anybody that stops by for a test. The more asymptomatic people that get tested, the closer to the actual active disease prevalence the positive rate will be. Unless you work or live where you will come into close, prolonged contact with high risk people I have no idea why you would get tested for the heck of it. The antibody test I understand but the diagnostic test makes no sense to me. Especially since, at least at the site that my business partner went to for the heck of it, they are still doing the swab through the nose to the back of the throat. No thanks!

 

[danlb_2000]

Coronaviruses: An Overview of Their Replication and Pathogenesis

Coronaviruses (CoVs), enveloped positive-sense RNA viruses, are characterized by club-like spikes that project from their surface, an unusually large RNA genome, and a unique replication strategy. Coronaviruses cause a variety of diseases in mammals and ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

He meant a source that actually backs up you claim, not one that refutes.

 

[imallearsgurl]

I agree it may be a drop in the bucket in the scheme of things, but the lack of disclosure of the relationship is a bit of a red flag. Given that it's been ongoing since at least 2013 it doesn't appear to be an unintentional oversight.

I'm not singling out Harvard, only brought it up since they were the source of the article. Other major universities have been identified as failing to disclose the foreign funding as well.

 

[GoofGoof]

I agree it may be a drop in the bucket in the scheme of things, but the lack of disclosure of the relationship is a bit of a red flag. Given that it's been ongoing since at least 2013 it doesn't appear to be an unintentional oversight.

I'm not singling out Harvard, only brought it up since they were the source of the article. Other major universities have been identified as failing to disclose the foreign funding as well.

Not trying to drag out this conversation but do you realize how “tin foil hat“ that sounds. So Harvard University received foreign donations that they failed to report and therefore anything published by anyone affiliated with the University is invalid? Some professor of epidemiology who spent their whole life on academic research and study to get to the PHD level they achieved is going to throw away their reputation and life’s work because of some donations they have nothing to do with? Seems very unlikely.

The better question is why would foreign governments want to influence a study on whether Covid is seasonal or not? What is in it for China? I‘m missing the whole point.

 

[robhedin]

The most important data points are the active hospitalizations for COVID-19, active ICU beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, available hospital beds and available ICU beds. The entire goal of "mitigation" as announced by Dr. Fauci at the beginning of the "15 days to slow the spread" was to flatten the curve and avoid overwhelming the health care system.

There was no suggestion from him or other health care experts that flattening the curve would lead to less cases or less deaths over the course of the pandemic. All of the graphics shown were to flatten the peak and spread the infections out to keep everything below the threshold where the health care system couldn't handle the patient load.

Since the data from every country clearly shows what demographics are at the highest risk of dying if they become infected, a secondary goal is to try and keep the most vulnerable from becoming infected. By far, the most vulnerable, are residents of nursing homes. In Florida, if the virus had been kept out of nursing homes completely there would literally be half the deaths in the state from COVID-19. After nursing home residents it is essentially the older you are, the higher the risk.

In the 45-54 age group, the mortality rate of documented cases is 0.9%, 35-44 is 0.44%, 25-35 is 0.15%. 24 and under there has been 1 fatality which makes the rate essentially 0%. Depending on the number of asymptomatic or otherwise undocumented cases, these rates will all go down somewhat.

Based on the antibody testing, the 35-64 age group is showing a little over 4% have antibodies. It is higher for the younger age groups. For a rough estimate, if we use 4% on the population of Florida, that would mean there have really been 859,000 infections vs. 65,779 Florida residents with documented cases. If the antibody testing is truly representative and the false positive rate is relatively low, that means all the mortality rates can be divided by 13. Even if you cut that in half, it would make the 45-54 age group rate 0.14%.

The point being that anybody under 55 is at a very low risk of dying if they get infected and the older you are past that rate it starts to get to a pretty high risk when compared to other respiratory viruses. The older you are and the more underlying health conditions you have, the more precautions you should take not to get infected.

The bottom line is that as long as the hospitals have capacity, there is no reason to back off on the reopening plans. There is more than enough information about who is at more risk for people to make personal decisions on what precautions they want to take. Especially since the Phase 1 and Phase 2 plans have a lot of social distancing and other protective measures in place.

For instance, my mom who is in her mid 70s and has CLL (which makes here immunocompromised) is staying at home except for necessary doctors appointments and I (or other family members from outside of the household) only visit with her outdoors and from 10 feet or more away. She will continue to take those precautions until the outbreak ends either through a vaccine or some other means. However, as long as the hospital capacity can handle a potential spike, there is no reason that I can't go to a restaurant, movie or WDW.

If they were going to come up with some kind of infection rate metric when they released the phased reopening plan, it should have been based on weekly, random sample studies that included a consistent percentage of people with COVID like symptoms. The positive rate of the testing is very variable because a lot depends on the characteristics of the population being tested.

They could make the positive percentage look good by doing 100,000 tests per day in Florida and offering $20 to anybody that stops by for a test. The more asymptomatic people that get tested, the closer to the actual active disease prevalence the positive rate will be. Unless you work or live where you will come into close, prolonged contact with high risk people I have no idea why you would get tested for the heck of it. The antibody test I understand but the diagnostic test makes no sense to me. Especially since, at least at the site that my business partner went to for the heck of it, they are still doing the swab through the nose to the back of the throat. No thanks!

I actually agree with everything you've said here; there's been a couple of times I've written out pretty much exactly that on other topics, then deleted it just because of the wall of text.

The point I was making (and evidently doing it poorly) was that the messaging from the top was not great. It added much confusion as to how serious things are/would be *from the perspective of the average person*. The concentration on potential deaths from the IHME models, for example, did wonders to get people onboard with the shutdown but also set unrealistic expectations about how serious the disease is to the general population- I've spoke with so many people that are sure they going to die if they contract this, even though they're under 30 for example.

 

[DisneyDebRob]

Harvard has a $40B+ endowment and growing. A few hundred million in foreign donations is like the $10 bill I give the bell services guy when he brings my bags up.

I don’t have a dog in this race and have no affiliation or allegiance to Harvard (Outside of the one year I added Ryan Fitzpatrick to my Fantasy Football team when my starting QB got hurt).

You deserve to lose with that fitzmagic pick up.

 

[GoofGoof]

You deserve to lose with that fitzmagic pick up.

He’s the poor man’s Nick Foles. Never did anything as a starter but has been decent coming in a few years off the bench.

 

[Kingoglow]

The bottom line is that as long as the hospitals have capacity, there is no reason to back off on the reopening plans. There is more than enough information about who is at more risk for people to make personal decisions on what precautions they want to take. Especially since the Phase 1 and Phase 2 plans have a lot of social distancing and other protective measures in place.

I think a point should be made that the more people that go into the hospital and take up those hospital beds, the more it puts healthcare providers at risk. As more healthcare providers become infected, it strains the whole hospital system. It wont matter how many beds are available is there are no doctors or nurses available to treat you. As the British say, protect the NHS.

But sure. continue the campaign to reopen. Continue to discount the risk.

 

[Rider]

I think a point should be made that the more people that go into the hospital and take up those hospital beds, the more it puts healthcare providers at risk. As more healthcare providers become infected, it strains the whole hospital system. It wont matter how many beds are available is there are no doctors or nurses available to treat you. As the British say, protect the NHS.

But sure. continue the campaign to reopen. Continue to discount the risk.

And if you wait to make changes until the hospitals are full it's already too late. Like trying to turn the Titanic after you hit the iceberg.

 

[Andrew C]

And if you wait to make changes until the hospitals are full it's already too late.

tracking trends is helpful for this.

 

[imallearsgurl]

Not trying to drag out this conversation but do you realize how “tin foil hat“ that sounds. So Harvard University received foreign donations that they failed to report and therefore anything published by anyone affiliated with the University is invalid? Some professor of epidemiology who spent their whole life on academic research and study to get to the PHD level they achieved is going to throw away their reputation and life’s work because of some donations they have nothing to do with? Seems very unlikely.

The better question is why would foreign governments want to influence a study on whether Covid is seasonal or not? What is in it for China? I‘m missing the whole point.

I wasn't diminishing the specific content of this study, or whether China (or anyone else) would have pushed a desired outcome. I was merely pointing out that identifying an article's merit based on the fact it's from Harvard doesn't necessarily mean it's a completely objective, reliable study.

I've seen a number of posts where people quickly dismiss article references deemed clickbait, or coming from unestablished websites. By no means am I saying that this falls into that category, or that anything coming from Harvard (or any other major university) is to be pushed aside. I'm just saying that they are subject to bias or influence just as many other sources are.

I had interpreted the original poster's "From Harvard." standalone sentence as a mic drop, based on it being an impeccable source. After reading the poster's followup comment, that was likely overreach on my part in which case I apologize.

I agree this has drifted off-topic so I'll direct my custom tin-foil mickey ears in a different direction

 

[DisneyCane]

I think a point should be made that the more people that go into the hospital and take up those hospital beds, the more it puts healthcare providers at risk. As more healthcare providers become infected, it strains the whole hospital system. It wont matter how many beds are available is there are no doctors or nurses available to treat you. As the British say, protect the NHS.

But sure. continue the campaign to reopen. Continue to discount the risk.

The providers have PPE available now.