Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[Dizneykid]

If lock downs don’t work then why did the countries who shut down earlier and stayed shut longer... get ahead of the virus and are consistently trending down in positivity and new cases? Lockdown didn’t work here because our leaders chose to let each individual state do their own thing. This allowed for some states to take extreme (at the time) measures while others (Florida) dragged their feet. Florida WAS doing well until we weren’t. Why aren’t we? Because we closed late and opened early. Instead of waiting 2 weeks between phases we waited 7-10 days... which we all know is NOT a long enough time to see which direction the trend is heading.

We have to lock down and start over... do it the right way. There is a lot of blood on people’s hands right now...

People aren't going to tolerate another lockdown. I'm also unconvinced that every business needs to shut down when most of them likely aren't the cause of these surges. We have already seen what seems to work with grocery stores and home improvement stores being open. We need to tighten safety at nursing homes and work environments. Households drive a lot of transmission if not most. Staying home ironically could very well be making it worse because our guards are down more where we live. Manufacturers are essential and many cases have come from the prolonged contact in those settings. They aren't able to shut down so the transmission will not stop by closing restaurants. Shut downs have to be based on what they are supposedly investigating. If bars are causing the case growth, we can assume it's because of the uniquely confined environment. That doesn't have to mean close every restaurant or business in the county. My humble opinion of course.

 

[Touchdown]

You don’t look at day by day changes, you need to look at overall trends, in the last week it seems new cases have leveled off. Deaths continue to grow expediently. Hopefully the new cases are peaking and we see them start to decrease but that remains to be seen.

 

[GoofGoof]

On the topic of Covid being no big deal for most people:

CDC: One-Third of COVID-19 Patients Who Aren't Hospitalized Have Long-Term Illness

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged Friday that a significant number of COVID-19 patients do not recover quickly, and instead experience ongoing symptoms, such as fatigue and cough. As many as a third of patients who were never sick enough to be hospitalized are not back...

www.nbcphiladelphia.com

 

[Heppenheimer]

So here in our country (Belgium) we have the first signs of a second wave... (actually in more European countries). They are trying to quickly respond and certain restrictions are being re-implemented. Masks are now mandatory. on the streets, in every public place, all shops, public transport etc... you can only take them off when sitting down in restaurants. Most people do not make a problem of wearing a mask. In busy streets in the city, almost 99% of the people are wearing it. And people who don't are confronted (you can get a 250 euros penalty). Our social bubbles are being restricted again from 15 to 10 people. Local lockdowns are being considered. Our numbers of cases were below 100 (7 day average)... but are now back at 352 today.
Hospitalizations are going up slowly at this point. What is concerning is that a larger number of people who are infected, are acting as super-spreaders. They have more virus particles in their nose and throat, research shows. Most of the local outbreaks are in certain social groups and people who have private party's.
(to put in perspective: bars and restaurants opened on june 15th. Themeparks, movie theatres etc... on july 1st)

This is an outsider's perspective (although from someone who has spent a lot of time in Belgium), but if there's any consolation, at least the pandemic has hit at a time when Belgium seems to have a fairly stable government. Not like a few years ago when it took seemingly forever to form the DiRupo coalition.

 

[Jwink]

People aren't going to tolerate another lockdown. I'm also unconvinced that every business needs to shut down when most of them likely aren't the cause of these surges. We have already seen what seems to work with grocery stores and home improvement stores being open. We need to tighten safety at nursing homes and work environments. Households drive a lot of transmission if not most. Staying home ironically could very well be making it worse because our guards are down more where we live. Manufacturers are essential and many cases have come from the prolonged contact in those settings. They aren't able to shut down so the transmission will not stop by closing restaurants. Shut downs have to be based on what they are supposedly investigating. If bars are causing the case growth, we can assume it's because of the uniquely confined environment. That doesn't have to mean close every restaurant or business in the county. My humble opinion of course.

Most of the places that you mentioned never shut down to begin with. Manufacturing plants, home-improvement stores, grocery stores etc. they never shut down. It worked for other countries and it would work for us if people actually did it. We never enforced it. There were no penalties for not staying home etc. I knew a ton of people who didn’t stay home.

 

[Dizneykid]

I ask this with sincerity and no background in statistics or pandemics (not that any of us do). If the "southern surge" was skewing more to young people and the death lag is catching up now, isn't there hope that the death rate associated with that specific surge will be lower? People say young people will bring it home to others but I hardly think that's necessarily true. People are being very careful around their elders and we have more high risk (and not high risk) people choosing to stay away from others than ever before.

I hope we can someday reach the point where we can ask and answer questions as people in this together rather than the predictable divide.

 

[GoofGoof]

People aren't going to tolerate another lockdown. I'm also unconvinced that every business needs to shut down when most of them likely aren't the cause of these surges. We have already seen what seems to work with grocery stores and home improvement stores being open. We need to tighten safety at nursing homes and work environments. Households drive a lot of transmission if not most. Staying home ironically could very well be making it worse because our guards are down more where we live. Manufacturers are essential and many cases have come from the prolonged contact in those settings. They aren't able to shut down so the transmission will not stop by closing restaurants. Shut downs have to be based on what they are supposedly investigating. If bars are causing the case growth, we can assume it's because of the uniquely confined environment. That doesn't have to mean close every restaurant or business in the county. My humble opinion of course.

I agree in general, however there are some places right now which are so out of control that a major pullback is warranted. Not necessarily full stay a home, but a pullback on re-opening for sure. Most have done just that to different degrees. I think once things are stable it’s possible to open up most of the economy safely with a controlled uptick in cases. This ties in with the school debate. If we want schools to open and stay open we need less community spread in a lot of places. That’s only going to be achieved by reducing people’s interaction and unfortunately people have shown they can’t control themselves so the government needs to make it happen.

 

[GoofGoof]

I ask this with sincerity and no background in statistics or pandemics (not that any of us do). If the "southern surge" was skewing more to young people and the death lag is catching up now, isn't there hope that the death rate associated with that specific surge will be lower? People say young people will bring it home to others but I hardly think that's necessarily true. People are being very careful around their elders and we have more high risk (and not high risk) people choosing to stay away from others than ever before.

I hope we can someday reach the point where we can ask and answer questions as people in this together rather than the predictable divide.

It does happen.

A Texas man died from coronavirus after his granddaughter spread infection to him from attending a party

The "20-something" girl was not showing symptoms when she unknowingly infected her grandfather after going to a party, according to Dr. Joseph Chang.

news.yahoo.com

 

[Dizneykid]

Most of the places that you mentioned never shut down to begin with. Manufacturing plants, home-improvement stores, grocery stores etc. they never shut down. It worked for other countries and it would work for us if people actually did it. We never enforced it. There were no penalties for not staying home etc. I knew a ton of people who didn’t stay home.

Are you saying that manufacturers should shut down too? An uncontrollable number of cases came from essential businesses anyway. How is going back to what we did in March going to help now? I think it's a pretty safe conclusion that public life with a mask on is very negligible risk which has allowed for places like retail and theme parks to open with that same confidence.

Walmart had 3 confirmed employee cases of covid in the most remote county of my state. No such reports have been made at any of the urban Walmarts in my state. Our CDC director said customers are not at risk if they had less than 15 minutes face to face around someone. Even lower risk with a mask on. Closing casual business makes no sense and creates more collateral damage. Unless you are calling for essential businesses to be closed, Walmart will remain open and employees nationwide will still have sporadic outbreaks. It's unstoppable. My state shut it all down and we couldn't stop it. We can only slow it down. If it can happen in an isolated rural county of only 70,000 people, it can happen anywhere.

 

[Thelazer]

Even with a shutdown, it will only SLOW the spread, not stop it.

You could make the case that will allow hospitals to catch up
You could make the case, that much like a car wreck in slow motion.. the end result is going to be the same.

We just don't have any easy answers to this.

 

[Jwink]

I agree in general, however there are some places right now which are so out of control that a major pullback is warranted. Not necessarily full stay a home, but a pullback on re-opening for sure. Most have done just that to different degrees. I think once things are stable it’s possible to open up most of the economy safely with a controlled uptick in cases. This ties in with the school debate. If we want schools to open and stay open we need less community spread in a lot of places. That’s only going to be achieved by reducing people’s interaction and unfortunately people have shown they can’t control themselves so the government needs to make it happen.

You mean like rallies, theme parks, and the dozens of weddings I’ve seen? I also think (before someone chimes in) that protests could be culprits... but protests are needed (IMO)... however masks should be required for any of the mentioned gatherings. Including protests.

My cousin had her wedding last month and I declined. I saw photos of my 80 year old gramma, some masked and some not. What was the point of wearing one at all? lol. Luckily nobody got sick!!!

 

[JoeCamel]

Even with a shutdown, it will only SLOW the spread, not stop it.

You could make the case that will allow hospitals to catch up
You could make the case, that much like a car wreck in slow motion.. the end result is going to be the same.

We just don't have any easy answers to this.

If it is slower you can get test results faster and do real contact tracing. As it is there is no way to do that.

Too bad everyone decided Memorial Day it was over and just went back to normal activities. If we had opened slower (much slower, more like six weeks between stages not two) we could be past this by now instead we condemn ourselves to dealing with it for the rest of the year and maybe a good part of next.

 

[Jwink]

Are you saying that manufacturers should shut down too? An uncontrollable number of cases came from essential businesses anyway. How is going back to what we did in March going to help now? I think it's a pretty safe conclusion that public life with a mask on is very negligible risk which has allowed for places like retail and theme parks to open with that same confidence.

Walmart had 3 confirmed employee cases of covid in the most remote county of my state. No such reports have been made at any of the urban Walmarts in my state. Our CDC director said customers are not at risk if they had less than 15 minutes face to face around someone. Even lower risk with a mask on. Closing casual business makes no sense and creates more collateral damage. Unless you are calling for essential businesses to be closed, Walmart will remain open and employees nationwide will still have sporadic outbreaks. It's unstoppable. My state shut it all down and we couldn't stop it. We can only slow it down. If it can happen in an isolated rural county of only 70,000 people, it can happen anywhere.

No I don’t think manufacturing places should shut down at all. We have short supplies as is. I do think that there should be something (from government?? IDK) that further protects sick workers longer than 2 weeks. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that 2 weeks is not long enough in a lot of cases to a) test negative and b) feel functional. There was that meat plant that had... gosh? Someone help me? A couple hundred cases of an outbreak and they were forced to stay open. Those workers, grocery clerks, cast members, etc... all of these people who have been forced to continue working or forced to return in unsafe conditions (I know that is an arguable point.... what is unsafe? Precautions are great but to me unsafe is in public during a pandemic) should be given more time off if they fall ill. I understand the implications of shutting down again... but all age groups are dying. I think the article I just read said that 1/3 if recovered patients have long lasting complications (organ failure, respiratory issues)... what if they can’t return to work for months? My mom made a good point. A virus needs a host. If we stay home again... maybe we can begin to smother this beast!

 

[Dizneykid]

I agree in general, however there are some places right now which are so out of control that a major pullback is warranted. Not necessarily full stay a home, but a pullback on re-opening for sure. Most have done just that to different degrees. I think once things are stable it’s possible to open up most of the economy safely with a controlled uptick in cases. This ties in with the school debate. If we want schools to open and stay open we need less community spread in a lot of places. That’s only going to be achieved by reducing people’s interaction and unfortunately people have shown they can’t control themselves so the government needs to make it happen.

Limiting interactions via government control sounds absolutely uncalled for to me. Good luck enforcing it too in a country founded on freedom. I kind of resent the idea that people are selfish for wanting to live a quality life (not saying you said that). It implies that people don't have the choice to stay home when they do. Retirement homes are brimming with people declining mentally from total isolation. They want to see loved ones. I'd argue that they literally need it. Most people consented to a short term shut down. We have zero evidence that even a smaller scale one will change outcome patterns. We know it will cause more despair though.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

We have zero evidence that even a smaller scale one will change outcome patterns. We know it will cause more despair though.

Yes, we do. Look at MA. Shut-down combined with mask mandates and our numbers are steadily going down.

 

[Kevin_W]

I ask this with sincerity and no background in statistics or pandemics (not that any of us do). If the "southern surge" was skewing more to young people and the death lag is catching up now, isn't there hope that the death rate associated with that specific surge will be lower?

Yes, and we're seeing that. In Florida, for instance, the rate of cases per day is ~5x what it was in April-May, while the rate of deaths per day is up roughly ~2x.

 

[GoofGoof]

Limiting interactions via government control sounds absolutely uncalled for to me. Good luck enforcing it too in a country founded on freedom. I kind of resent the idea that people are selfish for wanting to live a quality life (not saying you said that). It implies that people don't have the choice to stay home when they do. Retirement homes are brimming with people declining mentally from total isolation. They want to see loved ones. I'd argue that they literally need it. Most people consented to a short term shut down. We have zero evidence that even a smaller scale one will change outcome patterns. We know it will cause more despair though.

We can agree to disagree. I haven’t been out to bars or even indoor dining or at church or at graduation parties or at a theme park and I feel I still have a quality life. I spend time with my family, we go for walks, we play with the dog in the yard, we go to a pool to swim. I‘d prefer to go on vacation and go out to eat and go to parties but I know that’s not in the cards right now. I don’t understand the concept that people can’t have a quality life if they can’t do whatever they want whenever they want. But again, we can agree to disagree.

On the topic of long term care facilities they need to keep the places very secure. We know from the initial wave in the NE, without strict restrictions there’s going to be a lot of infection and death. There should be a way to allow people to see visitors more frequently, but they need to be very careful doing it. Some of this also comes back to the people involved having some self discipline. If you have a relative in a nursing home that you really want to visit then maybe self quarantine for 2 weeks and then go. The staff are another issue, but there’s less you can do about that. I know in a lot of places they are testing staff frequently to try to remove that potential path to an outbreak.

 

[GoofGoof]

Yes, and we're seeing that. In Florida, for instance, the rate of cases per day is ~5x what it was in April-May, while the rate of deaths per day is up roughly ~2x.

It’s true that cases are rising faster than deaths. However, I don’t think that the 2X rise in deaths is all 20 somethings. The majority are still older people. Someone has to be infecting them. Most likely younger people through community spread.

 

[Jenny72]

I have to admit that I've also found this idea strange, that it's only possible to truly live if we're going to bars, restaurants, theme parks, etc. I had a trip planned for this summer and wish everything were normal, but I am still "living" despite being very cautious. We're taking online classes, trying to experience nature more (although experiencing nature has also included wasp stings and poison ivy), etc.

But more than that, we're just sort of experiencing and processing this bizarre and frightening time we're in. In some ways I feel like I'm "living" far more than I do when I'm just automatically going about my regular business. Getting back to normal would feel like a break from all this living I'm doing!

I do understand that some people are truly isolated, particularly elderly people who live alone or in an institution, but to me that's a different category than bars, theme parks, etc. and should be handled differently. And of course I can only speak for myself. But I feel like if we all slowed down a bit and kind of "lived" in this moment, we'd be better off.

 

[Dizneykid]

We can agree to disagree. I haven’t been out to bars or even indoor dining or at church or at graduation parties or at a theme park and I feel I still have a quality life. I spend time with my family, we go for walks, we play with the dog in the yard, we go to a pool to swim. I‘d prefer to go on vacation and go out to eat and go to parties but I know that’s not in the cards right now. I don’t understand the concept that people can’t have a quality life if they can’t do whatever they want whenever they want. But again, we can agree to disagree.

On the topic of long term care facilities they need to keep the places very secure. We know from the initial wave in the NE, without strict restrictions there’s going to be a lot of infection and death. There should be a way to allow people to see visitors more frequently, but they need to be very careful doing it. Some of this also comes back to the people involved having some self discipline. If you have a relative in a nursing home that you really want to visit then maybe self quarantine for 2 weeks and then go. The staff are another issue, but there’s less you can do about that. I know in a lot of places they are testing staff frequently to try to remove that potential path to an outbreak.

A lot of the highest risk behavior can't be stopped is my point. Private parties must be topping the chart for transmission. If government steps in on private interactions, people will disobey more. I've always felt like masks are a good middle ground to open most of our economy. Until we know what specifically is causing the spread in Florida, I don't feel comfortable assuming what should be closed and shouldn't based on bias. Shutting down has huge consequences. We did the shutdown experiment. It caused harm in my opinion.

It's also normal to derive life quality from stimulating things like travel and theme parks. Judging by the number of people I've seen in all age groups following the rules in public, I'd say it's a common craving. Social creatures despair in isolation. Many introverts thrive in it. That's why we compromise by rule enforcement wherever we can. We won't be able to stop gatherings at home and I still feel like that is playing a primary transmission role.

I never said that throwing caution to the wind is okay. Living life with masks and social distancing is not doing whatever you want whenever you want. I hope that's not what you meant. I went to indoor dining and followed the rules. No regrets at all and it improved our quality of life. I respect and defend your choice to stay home more. I sheltered in place more than anyone until July. I did my part and still do. But we disagree and that's okay. I like to hear other opinions besides my own....within reason jk