Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[GoofGoof]

Tax cuts are a fait accompli. Go ahead and address those when you have a chance.

I'm far more concerned about the here and now. We currently have no income or health insurance. I'm far more interested in my husband being able to work again than I am in a handout.

As an aside, I want to minimize the bill we hand our kids when this is over.

We do indeed need some targeted relief. None of this "send a check to everyone" or business relief that big companies can sneak in the back door to drain. And nothing that also has a bunch of ridiculous poison pills attached, designed to force things through under duress if you want relief.

I don’t think it’s as easy as just remove restrictions and everyone out of work gets to go back to work. It’s a worldwide pandemic. Even in places like Sweden (discussed continuously as this shining example of not implementing restrictions) their economy tanked, they had bailout plans for businesses and workers, there was widespread unemployment. I think for the economy we need to focus on keeping the virus under control first and at the same time making sure we take care of the people who are negatively impacted. It’s far worse for the economy to allow the virus to rage unchecked, as we are seeing now. The hand out as you call it is making sure that people have what they need to eat and pay there bills until we get to a point where they can return to work. It’s not a permanent welfare situation.

To bring it back to WDW, they have essentially written off the rest of 2020 for any return to meaningful profits. They are just treading water. Had the country done a better job on controlling the virus I believe they would have been in a much better position.

 

[HongKongFooy]

how did China manage to get rid of it almost all together

---fairly naive to present that as a fact or a given, no?

 

[Jwink]

---fairly naive to present that as a fact or a given, no?

I don’t know what you mean but they definitely have- I work with families in China every day and they are back to normal with masks

 

[Jwink]

Answer to your question: Yes. that's why we are on page 2268.
I'm on the side of COVID is serious, so lets not be stupid and follow recommendations, but:

I don't think what China did in some situations would work. Example, they placed speakers in front of apartments to tell them to remain in doors, If I remember right. Yeaaa that would not go over well in America.
Also, I take anything that comes out of the CCP with a gallon or ten of salt.

I’m not sure about speakers but I know they bleached the streets every morning and night

 

[GoofGoof]

What? A job doesn't end when the handouts end. And it would provide health insurance.

I agree with this. It would be better if this pandemic never happened and nobody lost their jobs, but that’s not what happened. I agree that I’d much rather have a job than receive government assistance but with so many people out of work we need to take care of them now. I also think that once the pandemic is over and we start to see a rebuilding of the parts of the economy damaged most we will need further stimulus. Not just straight up checks sent to everyone to encourage spending, but more targeted stimulus like some of the proposals of tax breaks for restaurants, travel and leisure businesses and even possibly some sort of incentives for people to travel, cruise, eat out, etc. In other words don‘t give someone $1,200 they can use to buy a 50 inch TV from Amazon but rather a tax credit for eating out and traveling. This way the funds are further directed at the businesses most negatively impacted.

 

[drizgirl]

I don’t think it’s as easy as just remove restrictions and everyone out of work gets to go back to work. It’s a worldwide pandemic. Even in places like Sweden (discussed continuously as this shining example of not implementing restrictions) their economy tanked, they had bailout plans for businesses and workers, there was widespread unemployment. I think for the economy we need to focus on keeping the virus under control first and at the same time making sure we take care of the people who are negatively impacted. It’s far worse for the economy to allow the virus to rage unchecked, as we are seeing now. The hand out as you call it is making sure that people have what they need to eat and pay there bills until we get to a point where they can return to work. It’s not a permanent welfare situation.

To bring it back to WDW, they have essentially written off the rest of 2020 for any return to meaningful profits. They are just treading water. Had the country done a better job on controlling the virus I believe they would have been in a much better position.

I'm not in favor of throwing caution to the wind. Never said that. We are vary cautious with how we approach the virus. But the economy needs to have a seat at the table in the discussions about how we move forward. I'm in favor of finding the safest way possible to allow as much business to stay open as possible.

 

[Polkadotdress]

What? A job doesn't end when the handouts end. And it would provide health insurance.

Not all jobs include health insurance. And, some who are furloughed from a FT job (like my partner) have lost their insurance as the company they work for has made additional cuts while they are shuttered. So, in our case, unemployment and govt stimulus has been helpful to tide us over until he gets back to work, because my salary (which was reduced) isn't quite enough to sustain us.

 

[Kevin_W]

I don't think what China did in some situations would work. Example, they placed speakers in front of apartments to tell them to remain in doors, If I remember right. Yeaaa that would not go over well in America.
Also, I take anything that comes out of the CCP with a gallon or ten of salt.

So what did India, a country with 4x our population do to get their case numbers on a downward trajectory?

 

[drizgirl]

Not all jobs include health insurance. And, some who are furloughed from a FT job (like my partner) have lost their insurance as the company they work for has made additional cuts while they are shuttered. So, in our case, unemployment and govt stimulus has been helpful to tide us over until he gets back to work, because my salary (which was reduced) isn't quite enough to sustain us.

Sure. Some jobs don't have health insurance. But 100% of stimulus checks come without health insurance.

 

[hopemax]

So what did India, a country with 4x our population do to get their case numbers on a downward trajectory?

We don't want India way. Like Brazil, it has burned through some high population, densely populated areas and is looking for new hosts. IE. it's going rural, so numbers "look better" because of the damage already done, not because of a situation that is improving in any meaningful way. Just moving from high population areas to low population areas.

 

[DCBaker]

Numbers are out - there were 29 new reported deaths.

 

[GoofGoof]

I'm not in favor of throwing caution to the wind. Never said that. We are vary cautious with how we approach the virus. But the economy needs to have a seat at the table in the discussions about how we move forward. I'm in favor of finding the safest way possible to allow as much business to stay open as possible.

I agree with the bold sentence 100%. I think WDW is a great example of the way to do things right. I think as time has gone on we have found what’s problematic and what isn’t as high risk. As another example, in Apr/May I have a friend who owns an asphalt and paving business. His guys couldn’t work during the original stay at home orders. Now we’ve determined that outdoor is much less of an issue than indoor and as long as they implement distancing and/or masks when needed for the work crew it’s pretty safe to keep job sites open. IMHO same goes for retail, even non-essential retail. We shut all non-essential stores down in the spring but I don’t think there’s a higher risk going to Dicks Sporting Goods vs Walmart, both should be fine with masks and distancing.

Where the problem comes is stuff like indoor dining or bars or gyms. You can still have them open with proper restrictions but the restrictions are impractical in a lot of cases and the businesses can’t turn a profit. Many gyms aren’t large enough to have proper spacing. Most restaurants can’t stay afloat at 25% capacity or even 50%. Smaller bars can’t stay in business if you eliminate bar seating and required spaced tables. Those are the circumstances where the government needs to step in and make businesses and workers whole.

 

[GoofGoof]

Numbers are out - there were 29 new reported deaths.

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Should we be looking at yesterday and today combined? God I hope so. If not and the case numbers start creeping up towards the 10K a day mark will the governor take his head out of the sand (I could have said his head was somewhere else but I’m trying to behave) and actually pull back on some of the problem areas as well as mandate masks statewide like some other states have recently done and actually ask people not to get together for private parties and the holidays?

 

[DisneyCane]

Sorry, forget to mention that this isn’t just my opinion, it’s what infectious disease experts have been saying since the beginning:

“It is impossible to know if you are COVID-free, asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic in the absence of a test. I encourage everyone to assume they have COVID-19 when in public and when interacting with others. By practicing these proven public health practices, we can help slow the spread of COVID-19 in our communities and protect everyone.”

That's with respect to social distancing, etc. If you actually acted like you have COVID, you would have to isolate. It's meant more as don't think that since you don't have symptoms it's OK to crowd up against somebody in a night club.

There was a NY Times article a while back that cited research that up to 90% of the people who test positive in a PCR test don't have enough virus in them to be contagious. Nowhere near everyone has it and even those that do have active infections aren't all contagious.

Social distancing, simple practices, yes! Lockdowns, NO!

 

[DisneyCane]

Should we be looking at yesterday and today combined? God I hope so. If not and the case numbers start creeping up towards the 10K a day mark will the governor take his head out of the sand (I could have said his head was somewhere else but I’m trying to behave) and actually pull back on some of the problem areas as well as mandate masks statewide like some other states have recently done and actually ask people not to get together for private parties and the holidays?

Unless a trend starts to build over a few days, I think that we should look at 7 day average. 146,000 tests seem like a data dump from several days of testing. It is WAY above the average tests per day.

As with the pandemic since the beginning, the one county that has a "problem" is Miami-Dade, which continually has almost 1/4 of the cases in Florida but under 13% of the population. This disproportionality exists even when Miami-Dade has or has had much stricter restrictions than other counties and mask mandates (which they still have).

 

[_caleb]

That's with respect to social distancing, etc. If you actually acted like you have COVID, you would have to isolate. It's meant more as don't think that since you don't have symptoms it's OK to crowd up against somebody in a night club.

There was a NY Times article a while back that cited research that up to 90% of the people who test positive in a PCR test don't have enough virus in them to be contagious. Nowhere near everyone has it and even those that do have active infections aren't all contagious.

Social distancing, simple practices, yes! Lockdowns, NO!

I'm still not seeing a single person in this thread calling for "lockdowns." Why do you keep saying that?

And why can you seem to see the nuance in the article I linked ("We should all act like we've got it is in respect to social distancing," not "we should all isolate ourselves forever"), but not in what I've been saying here?

 

[GoofGoof]

There was a NY Times article a while back that cited research that up to 90% of the people who test positive in a PCR test don't have enough virus in them to be contagious. Nowhere near everyone has it and even those that do have active infections aren't all contagious.

What we know for sure is a lot of people are getting infected so someone has to be contagious.

The problem with stuff like this is we just don’t know for sure. It’s a theory but certainly not definitive proof. I think it’s dangerous when people grab on to stuff like this and assume it’s an absolute. It’s much better to err on the side of caution and assume anyone who tests positive is contagious. Many people are looking for any excuse possible to not follow very basic and simple protocols. It’s just tiring to constantly see people fight against acting responsibly. It obviously hasn’t served us well, maybe time for a change of tune.

 

[drizgirl]

I agree with the bold sentence 100%. I think WDW is a great example of the way to do things right. I think as time has gone on we have found what’s problematic and what isn’t as high risk. As another example, in Apr/May I have a friend who owns an asphalt and paving business. His guys couldn’t work during the original stay at home orders. Now we’ve determined that outdoor is much less of an issue than indoor and as long as they implement distancing and/or masks when needed for the work crew it’s pretty safe to keep job sites open. IMHO same goes for retail, even non-essential retail. We shut all non-essential stores down in the spring but I don’t think there’s a higher risk going to Dicks Sporting Goods vs Walmart, both should be fine with masks and distancing.

Where the problem comes is stuff like indoor dining or bars or gyms. You can still have them open with proper restrictions but the restrictions are impractical in a lot of cases and the businesses can’t turn a profit. Many gyms aren’t large enough to have proper spacing. Most restaurants can’t stay afloat at 25% capacity or even 50%. Smaller bars can’t stay in business if you eliminate bar seating and required spaced tables. Those are the circumstances where the government needs to step in and make businesses and workers whole.

I think bars should be closed down and replacement income offered from the government, since they are being closed through no fault of their own. If other places can't space things out, then probably the same for them. But they need to be approaching this with a scalpel rather than a chainsaw. Any business that can show a plan for distancing, and enforces a mask policy on their premises should be allowed to remain open.

 

[DisneyCane]

I'm still not seeing a single person in this thread calling for "lockdowns." Why do you keep saying that?

And why can you seem to see the nuance in the article I linked ("We should all act like we've got it is in respect to social distancing," not "we should all isolate ourselves forever"), but not in what I've been saying here?

Some in this thread are saying things like stay home except for essential activities. That's pretty much the same as a lockdown. Also, at least one member of the incoming task force for the incoming administration has suggested a 4-6 week shutdown (which is synonymous with lockdown). Many on this thread have been open about the fact that they voted for the incoming administration since they will follow the science. Therefore, it isn't crazy to assume that some percentage of those people support what the incoming administration wants to do.

 

[drizgirl]

What we know for sure is a lot of people are getting infected so someone has to be contagious.

The problem with stuff like this is we just don’t know for sure. It’s a theory but certainly not definitive proof. I think it’s dangerous when people grab on to stuff like this and assume it’s an absolute. It’s much better to err on the side of caution and assume anyone who tests positive is contagious. Many people are looking for any excuse possible to not follow very basic and simple protocols. It’s just tiring to constantly see people fight against acting responsibly. It obviously hasn’t served us well, maybe time for a change of tune.

Unfortunately I think a lot of the infections are happening in homes. There was still a large number of infections happening during the lockdowns back in the spring. I'm not sure we're going to solve that.