Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

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GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
_caleb said:
According to the article we definitely all read:

"The team confirmed that most Covid-19 transmissions occur at four superspreader sites: full-service restaurants, gyms, hotels, and cafes. These places are especially risky because groups of people tend to remain in close quarters for extended periods of time."

The study was actually focused on mobility, so the reason hotels are on the list is that people (from all over) stay for an extended period of time (relative to the 15-minute contact limit).
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Looking at this from the most extreme scenario it would be better for virus spread if nobody left their houses at all. Even grocery shopping could be done online with delivery (obviously the workers still need to leave their house, but we all gotta eat). Outside of full stay at home orders, the next best thing is allowing outdoor activities, activities involving interaction for brief periods and when necessary indoor interaction with masks and distancing. Grocery stores fall in that bucket along with some other retail, hotel lobbies and even theme parks. The most risky category is indoor activity for extended periods of time where masks and/or distancing are not practiced. This includes gyms, restaurants and bars and parties and gatherings at home. So I don’t think it’s just mobility that’s an issue overall it’s the type of activity.
 
DisneyDebRob

DisneyDebRob

Well-Known Member
Heppenheimer said:
The flu season really hasn't hit as of now, so if cases have been low-to-zero in your area, they may not routinely test yet. In my area, unless we have very strong clinical suspicion, we're holding back testing of the flu for now because our resources for testing are finite. If and when the hospitals start seeing more cases (they act sort of like the canary in a mineshaft), then we'll probably start testing more.
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I got a flu shot and a shingles shot( first one of two).. along with the Covid shot soon I don’t think anything is going to get me. Any other shots I can get while I’m at it? 🙂
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
techgeek said:
It seems to me that, at least in relatively modern construction, rooms typically all have their own independent HVAC. Common spaces obviously are shared, and maybe that’s the major concern. The elevator thing is a eyebrow raiser for me honestly needing more answers... it’s a very small space, with very quick cycles between parties.
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Yes, there is a lot of isolation between the HVAC and even contemporary shared equipment can often be adjusted to increase the amount of fresh air being brought into the building.

The CDC published a report about a case in China where an asymptomatic carrier spread SARS-CoV-2 to 40 other people in an apartment building by contaminating the buttons.

techgeek said:
One other thing I can imagine a lot more variation in is the bathroom exhaust arrangements... I’ve seen everything from fans in the individual units sucking air right to outside, to shared exhaust ducts with either more centrally driven or passive airflow.
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The different arrangement all still have minimum performance requirements. The noxious gases that can build up are an issue so its usually something that gets a good bit of attention not just during initial construction but also renovations.

Kevin_W said:
I'm surprised at how many hotels I've been in that have no bath fan at all.
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They're required by code. You just may not hear it if it is not right there at the room.
 
_caleb

_caleb

Well-Known Member
GoofGoof said:
Looking at this from the most extreme scenario it would be better for virus spread if nobody left their houses at all. Even grocery shopping could be done online with delivery (obviously the workers still need to leave their house, but we all gotta eat). Outside of full stay at home orders, the next best thing is allowing outdoor activities, activities involving interaction for brief periods and when necessary indoor interaction with masks and distancing. Grocery stores fall in that bucket along with some other retail, hotel lobbies and even theme parks. The most risky category is indoor activity for extended periods of time where masks and/or distancing are not practiced. This includes gyms, restaurants and bars and parties and gatherings at home. So I don’t think it’s just mobility that’s an issue overall it’s the type of activity.
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Right. My opinions about this has changed somewhat significantly over the last few weeks, and I'm pretty fired up about it. Thanks all for being so gracious with me as I process how what we're seeing happen across the country should inform my behavior (and attitude towards those who might disagree with me).

Not sure we have to always go back to "nobody ever leaving their houses at all" as a baseline. I don't think I've ever heard anyone argue for that. But "stay home" has been a mantra since the beginning (right along with "wash your hands" and, except for the first few weeks of the pandemic, "wear a mask").

According to the article, grocery shopping has not been identified as a significant source of the spread of COVID, yet hotels, cafes, restaurants, and gyms have shown to be disproportionately responsible for spreading. While a hotel hallway might not seem that much different than an aisle at the supermarket, this research shows that even the same behavior in each is producing different results.

You outline a series of "levels" of reopening (as has been common in America's discussion for a long time now). While I agree that full stay-at-home orders would be one extreme, I don't see how "retail, hotel lobbies, and even theme parks" would fall into the next tier of restrictions- the "only what's necessary" category, which we all seem to have skipped past on our way to Disney World.

Again, I'm fascinated with how much our individual perspectives on COVID protocols shapes our behaviors. If masks, 6', 15 min (cumulative) contact, and surface/hand washing is the most we should be doing (regardless of context), then it makes sense that people would just apply these measures to literally anything they want to do and consider it (relatively) safe.

But if you see (as I have come to do) these measures as the very least we ought to do in order to slow the spread of the virus, you see these things as the bare minimum we should do, and even then only as we go about doing only what is absolutely essential. If I do anything other than what's essential (the definition of which is obviously up for debate), I go above and beyond these measures (greater physical distancing, masks always, outdoor activities only, no unnecessary travel, leisure activities, etc.).

I work with at-risk families. I am seeing the tremendous and lasting impact COVID is having on them. It seems to me that choosing to avoid indoor restaurant dining and movies at the theater (along with skipping my biennial trip to Disney World) is the sane, responsible, and wise thing to do as we all face the threat of COVID that does not affect us all the same.
 
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danlb_2000

danlb_2000

Premium Member
_caleb said:
According to the article we definitely all read:

"The team confirmed that most Covid-19 transmissions occur at four superspreader sites: full-service restaurants, gyms, hotels, and cafes. These places are especially risky because groups of people tend to remain in close quarters for extended periods of time."

The study was actually focused on mobility, so the reason hotels are on the list is that people (from all over) stay for an extended period of time (relative to the 15-minute contact limit).
Click to expand...

I have spent a lot of time in hotels and almost never spend time near others unless I am eating.
 
_caleb

_caleb

Well-Known Member
danlb_2000 said:
I have spent a lot of time in hotels and almost never spend time near others unless I am eating.
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Right. And you probably don't wear a mask while eating, unless you've got one of those special ones with a giant hole in the middle.

Consider how the study was done- they watched cell phone signals on a flat (two-dimensional) map. Picture a dot representing each cell phone they tracked (representing at least one person per phone signal). In many instances, the dots (signals) overlapped for longer periods of time on certain parts of the map. When they investigated, they found that many of those instances turned out to be hotels, cafes, restaurants, and gyms (this is not the interesting or insightful part of the study). It should be noted (as it was in the Washington Post's reporting on the same study) that schools and nursing homes would probably also have appeared as significant places of overlap, but since old people and kids don't typically have cell phones, their methodology wouldn't allow them to measure these places.

The significant part of this study is that when they overlaid findings about interpersonal spread of the virus on top of the overlapping signals (which represented actual human mobility), hotels, cafes, restaurants, and gyms could clearly be seen as significant sources of the spread of the virus.

In other words, these places, regardless of the measures they have in place (plexiglass, masks, etc.) create higher-risk because they are nodes of human traffic where people hang about rather than just passing through.
 
danlb_2000

danlb_2000

Premium Member
DisneyDebRob said:
Thanks, but not that old yet. 50’s here but my mom about 20 years ago got shingles real bad. Recommend it for anyone 50 and above, that’s not something anyone should go through. Long way off to that pneumonia shot.
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I have seen conflicting guidance on the shingles vaccine, some places say over 50, but other, including my doctor, say over 60.
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
_caleb said:
Right. My opinions about this has changed somewhat significantly over the last few weeks, and I'm pretty fired up about it. Thanks all for being so gracious with me as I process how what we're seeing happen across the country should inform my behavior (and attitude towards those who might disagree with me).

Not sure we have to always go back to "nobody ever leaving their houses at all" as a baseline. I don't think I've ever heard anyone argue for that. But "stay home" has been a mantra since the beginning (right along with "wash your hands" and, except for the first few weeks of the pandemic, "wear a mask").

According to the article, grocery shopping has not been identified as a significant source of the spread of COVID, yet hotels, cafes, restaurants, and gyms have shown to be disproportionately responsible for spreading. While a hotel hallway might not seem that much different than an aisle at the supermarket, this research shows that even the same behavior in each is producing different results.

You outline a series of "levels" of reopening (as has been common in America's discussion for a long time now). While I agree that full stay-at-home orders would be one extreme, I don't see how "retail, hotel lobbies, and even theme parks" would fall into the next tier of restrictions- the "only what's necessary" category, which we all seem to have skipped past on our way to Disney World.

Again, I'm fascinated with how much our individual perspectives on COVID protocols shapes our behaviors. If masks, 6', 15 min (cumulative) contact, and surface/hand washing is the most we should be doing (regardless of context), then it makes sense that people would just apply these measures to literally anything they want to do and consider it (relatively) safe.

But if you see (as I have come to do) these measures as the very least we ought to do in order to slow the spread of the virus, you see these things as the bare minimum we should do, and even then only as we go about doing only what is absolutely essential. If I do anything other than what's essential (the definition of which is obviously up for debate), I go above and beyond these measures (greater physical distancing, masks always, outdoor activities only, no unnecessary travel, leisure activities, etc.).

I work with at-risk families. I am seeing the tremendous and lasting impact COVID is having on them. It seems to me that choosing to avoid indoor restaurant dining and movies at the theater (along with skipping my biennial trip to Disney World) is the sane, responsible, and wise thing to do as we all face the threat of COVID that does not affect us all the same.
Click to expand...
Very simply put, I think we were beyond the essential stuff only phase in most places. Now with cases spiking all over it may be necessary to go back to that in some places. The point I was making is that there are levels of risk in all activities and there are mitigating measures that can be used to reduce that risk. In some cases they work well and in others not so much. Taking retail as an example, we have found good ways to make shopping more safe with masks and distancing and hygiene. So if grocery shopping is safe so is going to Dicks to buy a bike or going to a clothing store to buy some pants. Even though groceries are more essential it’s no more or less risky to do. Things like indoor dining are a problem and we haven’t found good ways around it and may never.

I think WDW is pretty solid with precautions excluding the indoor dining part. I don‘t think I’m the current environment anyone should be traveling out of state right now, but if you love local and want to go to the park for a few hours there are many worse things you could choose to do.
 
DisneyDebRob

DisneyDebRob

Well-Known Member
danlb_2000 said:
I have seen conflicting guidance on the shingles vaccine, some places say over 50, but other, including my doctor, say over 60.
Click to expand...
Not to throw this thread off topic to much.. I asked my doctor also. Guess he figured because my mom had it so bad to get it. No worries getting flu and shingles at same time which was nice. Around 90% which is good also.
 
M

mmascari

Well-Known Member
techgeek said:
I don’t know what the general consensus about other states is, but I have zero confidence in any meaningful inspection / health department intervention ever happening anywhere in the state of Florida. Political climate aside, there’s just no resources, no will to establish resources at any level, and business owners would largely end up fighting it and finding loopholes every inch of the way. That’s the way it rolled here earlier with the shutdown and early reopening phases...
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Like all external disasters, it needs some coordination and lots of funding from the federal level. Then implementation at a more local level.

Federal dollars aren’t the same as state dollars. States don’t have their own currency and cannot run a deficit. There’s plenty of out of work people that could be hired. Same for contact tracing.

It’s the same problem since day 1, there’s no federal will to do these tasks. All the federal dollars are looking at only vaccines and therapeutics.
 
Kevin_W

Kevin_W

Well-Known Member
DisneyDebRob said:
Not to throw this thread off topic to much.. I asked my doctor also. Guess he figured because my mom had it so bad to get it. No worries getting flu and shingles at same time which was nice. Around 90% which is good also.
Click to expand...

Just this morning, I talked to my manager at work who had both shingles and flu shot (Costco) recently at the same time. He's also in the Pfizer vaccine trial (so, 50/50 chance of vaccine or placebo) so he's feeling pretty good about his immune system. :)
 
SamusAranX

SamusAranX

Well-Known Member
If shutting down hotels means getting rid of our local hives of scum and villainy (Days Inn and the “2 hour” highway 19 motels) I am all for it
 
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