Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

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Chip Chipperson

Well-Known Member
2 weeks ago a friend of mine, with no pre existing conditions checked into the hospital because his cough wouldn't go away. It was determined he had Covid. 2 days later he was in the ICU.

Yesterday he died.
He was 27

Anytime people say it only effects old people and those with health issues... this is why that nonsense makes me angry. No one knows how or why yet, but everyone's reaction is different. I had another who just came out of the hospital He was lucky - sort of. He was in a coma in an ICU unit for 120 days, and has a long recovery ahead of him. and his hospital bill was $2 million. And counting. Also he was healthy, and older (47)

And finally, the actual hard data report is out.

[/URL]

I'm sorry about your friend. That's terrible.
 

DCBaker

Premium Member
"A trial is likely to go ahead in January to find out whether mixing and matching Covid vaccines gives better protection than two doses of the same one, the head of the British government’s taskforce has said."

"Those who take part in January’s trial will get one shot of AstraZeneca’s vaccine and one of the Pfizer injection. A vaccine from US biotech firm Moderna will also be included if it gets approval.

Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines have both been shown to have 95% efficacy at protecting people against the virus. For AstraZeneca’s, efficacy was 62% among the largest cohort given two doses, but rose to 90% among a smaller group given half a dose initially, followed by a full dose.

Kate Bingham, outgoing chair of the UK’s vaccine taskforce, said the “mix and match” trials were not about making limited supplies of the vaccines go further. The UK government has ordered 40m doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 100m of Oxford/AstraZeneca’s candidate.

“It’s not being done because of supplies,” said Bingham. “It’s to do with trying to trigger the immune response and the durability and nothing to do with what vaccines we’ve got.”

The concept is known as a heterologous prime-boost. “It means mix and matching vaccines,” said Bingham. “So you do a prime with one vaccine and then the second – whether it’s 28 days or two months or whatever the agreed periods would be – would be with a different vaccine.”

Viral-based vaccines such as the Oxford jab, which is based on a chimp common cold virus, give a much greater cellular response – prompting the T-cells to kill cells infected with the coronavirus. The mRNA vaccines, like Pfizer’s, tend to generate a bigger antibody response. So the idea is to combine them, in whichever order, to help the immune system respond more powerfully to Sars-CoV2.

“No one’s ever done it live and since we’ll have safe vaccines available we should do that study, because then we have the ability to actually produce better immune responses,” said Clive Dix, deputy chair of the taskforce.

“There is a slight benefit to it, too, in that if prime and boosting either way around work, it may help with the deployment, because it might just be simpler to deploy that way round, but the main reason is to get a stronger immune response.”

Bingham and Dix were speaking at the launch of a progress report on the first six months of the taskforce, which has secured deals for seven different vaccines for the UK."


 

danlb_2000

Premium Member
We'll continue to acquire a huge amount of data to answer that question as more people receive the vaccine.

The sparse incidences of reinfection, though, will take much longer to accumulate enough data points that we can start to make decent conclusions on natural immunity.

Re-infection data is really tricky because the only way to prove it is to be tested for it the first time, have the genome of the virus analyzed, know you have it a second time, and again have the genome analyzed to see if it's a re-infection or just the first infection remaining in your body.
 

Chi84

Premium Member
That’s a great question
It was five years ago, but I don't remember hearing any credible theories of liability against Disney. There were some interesting articles at the time speculating as to whether a parent who refuses to vaccinate their child against measles could be found liable for negligence if the child passes along the disease. As I recall, California law was not too kind to the anti-vax crowd. As far as I know, nothing came of that, though.
 

Animal_Kingdom_09

Active Member
‘Completely normal’ (ie: 2019) may never happen again in our lifetimes.

There’s going to be a myriad of stages of ‘still weird’, ‘kinda normal’, ‘somewhat normal’, ‘mostly normal’, and ‘normal, but..’, before finally resting on ‘new normal’.
Nah, unless you are 85 years old. 5 years after the Spanish Flu pandemic was the Roaring 20's. People have short memories.
 

hopemax

Well-Known Member
Hasn’t stopped them from eliminating all but 1 daily parade at each property. (Florida / California). Just a few years ago Florida had 4 daily parades and California had 3.
<-- Old enough to remember when parades and fireworks were something that only happened during the summer. I remember for the 25th Anniversary it was a really big deal that they were offering fireworks every night. It must have tipped the scales because then they expanded all that sort of stuff into the four parks. It's different management now, though. The MK will keep its day parade, Epcot will keep a Lagoon show, the parties will have their entertainment. But I wouldn't count on much more than that. Maybe they are still paying off that Hub remodel, so MK's fireworks, dessert parties, and reserved viewing area will come back. Like I said before, if Disney can monetize something it has a better chance of coming back sooner. If it's just atmosphere, so long, unless people say it's a reason they aren't returning.
 

GoofGoof

Premium Member
How many people visit the parks each year because of parades and fireworks? How many people would not visit if they cut those things completely? If they cut them by 50%? 75%?

If they cut the parades by 90% and called them "cavalcades," would guests still come? Would guest satisfaction suffer? Guest spending?
By this logic why have any of it ever? The overall guest experience and satisfaction does matter. Disney World has always been a business nothing about Covid changes that, but when you take away all the stuff that makes the Disney parks different and better they will lose guests. The cavalcades aren’t designed to work with crowds. Without the capacity limits Main Street is literally packed with people every day. When they do actual parades it takes time to set up with ropes and crowd control for traffic flow. It’s a great alternative to have today considering no parade and more importantly no meet and greets but completely impractical when they are at full scale operation. It’s much more practical to keep a day parade and separate character meet and greets in various locations where an organized line can be formed.

On the nighttime entertainment, I don’t know how we could possibly know how many people wouldn’t go without it. I think it’s fair to say that Disney knows they sell a boat load of merchandise and snacks to people waiting for the Main Street night activity. The EPCOT night show keeps people in the parks until 9:30 and keeps them eating dinner there instead of leaving at 6 or 7 and having a meal on Idrive or off property somewhere else. Why do you think they spent money creating RoL in AK in the first place....to get people to stay into the evening and spending on food and merchandise. They sold a bunch of timeshare points for resorts with views of the MK fireworks and they sell very expensive hotel rooms with those same views. There are many ancillary economic benefits to the large scale entertainment beyond just how many extra park tickets you sell because of it. They also charge north of $100 a day so people expect a full day experience.

Nobody is hell-bent on seeing Disney reduce things like live entertainment, parades, or fireworks. You think any of us want to see these cuts?

I hope I'm wrong, and that as soon as it's safe, Disney will actually hire back MORE CM's, musicians and actors. I hope they double down on fireworks and add hourly parades in all the parks. I love that stuff! I hope they add roaming driods and aliens to Galaxy's Edge. I hope they include free parking, free admission on your birthday, kids eat free dining, and rewards for loyalty and return visits.

But how likely is all this? And haven't we all been paying attention long enough to recognize the trend is going in a different direction?
I actually think some people on these boards do want to see it, but that’s a different topic.

You are listing a bunch of pie in the sky stuff, but all that I’m saying is why not just simply go back to what they had going on before Covid. Not free meals and free admissions and other nonsense. Why are they still building barges at EPCOT if they are certain not to have a night show anymore? I think it’s far more likely that most of the shows and entertainment that previously existed come back. If some don’t return it will be because of lack of popularity (River of Light) vs guests are just content with not having that stuff.
 

GoofGoof

Premium Member
<-- Old enough to remember when parades and fireworks were something that only happened during the summer. I remember for the 25th Anniversary it was a really big deal that they were offering fireworks every night. It must have tipped the scales because then they expanded all that sort of stuff into the four parks. It's different management now, though. The MK will keep its day parade, Epcot will keep a Lagoon show, the parties will have their entertainment. But I wouldn't count on much more than that. Maybe they are still paying off that Hub remodel, so MK's fireworks, dessert parties, and reserved viewing area will come back. Like I said before, if Disney can monetize something it has a better chance of coming back sooner. If it's just atmosphere, so long, unless people say it's a reason they aren't returning.
I think there is a really good chance Fantasmic comes back too. Basically what you just described coming back is MK day parade, MK fireworks, EPCOT night show and if you add back Fantasmic the only thing missing for large scale entertainment from pre-COvid is a DHS firework show and Rivers of Light which was cancelled a year before Covid and then brought back in a lesser form and now cancelled again. The smaller scale entertainment will come back as conditions allow. It won’t be all the same stuff but that’s constantly changing.
 

Animal_Kingdom_09

Active Member
I would think so. We don't know how long immunity lasts in people who have been infected and there are cases of people getting it twice due to different strains.
Although, if immunity does not last then I am not sure that a vaccine will do much good.

There have only been a handful of documented re-infections, so the evidence at this time suggests that this is not a problem. That may change, but you have to work with what you know, not all of the what-ifs.

What I think is more likely is that people who test positive but have few or only mild symptoms will think they have immunity when they probably do not. To get immunity, you usually have to actually get sick so that your body fights it off.
 

hopemax

Well-Known Member
I think there is a really good chance Fantasmic comes back too. Basically what you just described coming back is MK day parade, MK fireworks, EPCOT night show and if you add back Fantasmic the only thing missing for large scale entertainment from pre-COvid is a DHS firework show and Rivers of Light which was cancelled a year before Covid and then brought back in a lesser form and now cancelled again. The smaller scale entertainment will come back as conditions allow. It won’t be all the same stuff but that’s constantly changing.
The Fantasmic theater can just be closed off and hidden. Fantasmic takes... a lot of people (and a lot of equipment that may or may not have been maintained in the interim), and I don't think they want people. Fireworks, lasers, projections, sure, but no people. And here we are just accepting that there will not be a nighttime parade at MK, parades at DHS and parades at AK. So the others aren't really guarantees either. If Harmonius wasn't already deep into it, I think they'd just run ROE for another 20 years or until the barges broke. I am assuming the MK Day parade was protected, but I really shouldn't assume. So three questions A. Is Disney still paying it off B. Is it in good enough shape, C. Can Disney monetize it.
 

DisneyDebRob

Well-Known Member
By this logic why have any of it ever? The overall guest experience and satisfaction does matter. Disney World has always been a business nothing about Covid changes that, but when you take away all the stuff that makes the Disney parks different and better they will lose guests. The cavalcades aren’t designed to work with crowds. Without the capacity limits Main Street is literally packed with people every day. When they do actual parades it takes time to set up with ropes and crowd control for traffic flow. It’s a great alternative to have today considering no parade and more importantly no meet and greets but completely impractical when they are at full scale operation. It’s much more practical to keep a day parade and separate character meet and greets in various locations where an organized line can be formed.

On the nighttime entertainment, I don’t know how we could possibly know how many people wouldn’t go without it. I think it’s fair to say that Disney knows they sell a boat load of merchandise and snacks to people waiting for the Main Street night activity. The EPCOT night show keeps people in the parks until 9:30 and keeps them eating dinner there instead of leaving at 6 or 7 and having a meal on Idrive or off property somewhere else. Why do you think they spent money creating RoL in AK in the first place....to get people to stay into the evening and spending on food and merchandise. They sold a bunch of timeshare points for resorts with views of the MK fireworks and they sell very expensive hotel rooms with those same views. There are many ancillary economic benefits to the large scale entertainment beyond just how many extra park tickets you sell because of it. They also charge north of $100 a day so people expect a full day experience.


I actually think some people on these boards do want to see it, but that’s a different topic.

You are listing a bunch of pie in the sky stuff, but all that I’m saying is why not just simply go back to what they had going on before Covid. Not free meals and free admissions and other nonsense. Why are they still building barges at EPCOT if they are certain not to have a night show anymore? I think it’s far more likely that most of the shows and entertainment that previously existed come back. If some don’t return it will be because of lack of popularity (River of Light) vs guests are just content with not having that stuff.
GoofGoof.. I hear you. And I mostly agree. I think things will mostly go back to kind of the way it was but something also tells me maybe not.
I brought up the parade at MK that no one Misses now. They survived the backlash and it’s gone now and who knows if it will ever come back. Rivers of Light? You say it wasn’t liked but it was sold out every time I went for years. Might not have been the best night time show but it was something. It wasn’t being run half filled.
As for the Epcot fireworks, yes it Vma he’s people stay and eat dinner and but merch all night but I would venture to say most would be staying around and eating anyway. The show never started until most restaurants were finishing up.
Let’s look at the people that go to Disney world. Not us on the boards. How many that are going next year or the year after even know about some of these shows. I would venture to guess they are families with the kids wanting to meet Mickey and fly on Peter Pan. They are still going to go. No family who’s kids want to go are canceling a vacation because the parade isn’t going on or the fireworks aren’t been run. Thousands are asleep or falling asleep by the time they start anyway. So maybe there’s something to it.
I will miss that stuff because I know what goes ion in Disney and it’s a cut for me like many others here. So we will complain on these boards about another cut but eventually go again. The people going for the first time or first time in a long time, they won’t miss it.
I’m DVC so I’m going anyway because of the restaurants, golf and enjoyable nights in a park like AK or Epcot.
In saying all that I really hope they replace RoL.. replace the night time parade at MK.. fill some of the empty buildings of closed attractions with something. Then along with some of the new attractions coming it makes it totally worth the money. Just don’t use Covid as a way to cut more and hope to get away with it.
 

Sirwalterraleigh

Premium Member
It was five years ago, but I don't remember hearing any credible theories of liability against Disney. There were some interesting articles at the time speculating as to whether a parent who refuses to vaccinate their child against measles could be found liable for negligence if the child passes along the disease. As I recall, California law was not too kind to the anti-vax crowd. As far as I know, nothing came of that, though.

I meant how did Disney address it?

I honestly don’t remember how they handled it.
 

Sirwalterraleigh

Premium Member
And by the way...I’ll drone about this...part of Disney reopening is them taking the opportunity to study the response.

They always do...and that allows them to push the limits. Same or more pricing for less...more fees for “exclusive access”...special tickets.

What’s stopping them from charging $125 a head for “night magic” which is your only shot at a parade and a fireworks show?

...it sure as hell won’t be the consumers.

The wallet speaks...and it causes responses.
Run back in the masks on the weekend...”sneak” south or east for the week trip you “always” do. Doesn’t matter that you’re buying much less...nobody is watching. 🤞🏻
 

_caleb

Well-Known Member
By this logic why have any of it ever? The overall guest experience and satisfaction does matter. Disney World has always been a business nothing about Covid changes that, but when you take away all the stuff that makes the Disney parks different and better they will lose guests. The cavalcades aren’t designed to work with crowds. Without the capacity limits Main Street is literally packed with people every day. When they do actual parades it takes time to set up with ropes and crowd control for traffic flow. It’s a great alternative to have today considering no parade and more importantly no meet and greets but completely impractical when they are at full scale operation. It’s much more practical to keep a day parade and separate character meet and greets in various locations where an organized line can be formed.

On the nighttime entertainment, I don’t know how we could possibly know how many people wouldn’t go without it. I think it’s fair to say that Disney knows they sell a boat load of merchandise and snacks to people waiting for the Main Street night activity. The EPCOT night show keeps people in the parks until 9:30 and keeps them eating dinner there instead of leaving at 6 or 7 and having a meal on Idrive or off property somewhere else. Why do you think they spent money creating RoL in AK in the first place....to get people to stay into the evening and spending on food and merchandise. They sold a bunch of timeshare points for resorts with views of the MK fireworks and they sell very expensive hotel rooms with those same views. There are many ancillary economic benefits to the large scale entertainment beyond just how many extra park tickets you sell because of it. They also charge north of $100 a day so people expect a full day experience.


I actually think some people on these boards do want to see it, but that’s a different topic.

You are listing a bunch of pie in the sky stuff, but all that I’m saying is why not just simply go back to what they had going on before Covid. Not free meals and free admissions and other nonsense. Why are they still building barges at EPCOT if they are certain not to have a night show anymore? I think it’s far more likely that most of the shows and entertainment that previously existed come back. If some don’t return it will be because of lack of popularity (River of Light) vs guests are just content with not having that stuff.
Hmm. Seems like I’m not communicating very clearly here. I’m not saying “Disney will never do fireworks again.” I’m saying, “The COVID cutbacks have given them an opportunity/excuse to make cost-cutting changes that might otherwise result in a lot of negative PR.“

You’re right that nighttime shows are designed to keep people in the parks later and they do indeed result in people buying stuff. But because Disney was forced by the pandemic to cut those things, they have an opportunity to test out what happens if they add them back partially, more cheaply, or not at all.

Again, I hope I’m wrong.

BTW, the ”pie in the sky” stuff I mention is all stuff that Disney either promised but didn’t deliver (droids and aliens in SW:GE) or stuff Disney actually used to do. All of these things were cut because Disney realized that while people loved them, there was little to no negative impact to cutting them.
 

GoofGoof

Premium Member
GoofGoof.. I hear you. And I mostly agree. I think things will mostly go back to kind of the way it was but something also tells me maybe not.
I brought up the parade at MK that no one Misses now. They survived the backlash and it’s gone now and who knows if it will ever come back. Rivers of Light? You say it wasn’t liked but it was sold out every time I went for years. Might not have been the best night time show but it was something. It wasn’t being run half filled.
As for the Epcot fireworks, yes it Vma he’s people stay and eat dinner and but merch all night but I would venture to say most would be staying around and eating anyway. The show never started until most restaurants were finishing up.
Let’s look at the people that go to Disney world. Not us on the boards. How many that are going next year or the year after even know about some of these shows. I would venture to guess they are families with the kids wanting to meet Mickey and fly on Peter Pan. They are still going to go. No family who’s kids want to go are canceling a vacation because the parade isn’t going on or the fireworks aren’t been run. Thousands are asleep or falling asleep by the time they start anyway. So maybe there’s something to it.
I will miss that stuff because I know what goes ion in Disney and it’s a cut for me like many others here. So we will complain on these boards about another cut but eventually go again. The people going for the first time or first time in a long time, they won’t miss it.
I’m DVC so I’m going anyway because of the restaurants, golf and enjoyable nights in a park like AK or Epcot.
In saying all that I really hope they replace RoL.. replace the night time parade at MK.. fill some of the empty buildings of closed attractions with something. Then along with some of the new attractions coming it makes it totally worth the money. Just don’t use Covid as a way to cut more and hope to get away with it.
I don’t think Covid has anything to do with any of this. Why do they need covid as an excuse to cut anything? They cut stuff all the time without it. IMHO it’s much more likely that the majority of things come back once Covid restrictions are completely gone and then they cut further down the line, business as usual. I don’t think Disney cares about using Covid as cover for cuts, they are going to be busy trying to quickly grow crowds back to the pre-Covid size and make the parks profitable again. Wall Street is watching.
 

Disney Experience

Well-Known Member
The data on the vaccine shows that it is highly effective in preventing people from getting sick. There is no data yet on how the vaccine impacts transmission.
The animal studies would suggest (and they are only animal studies) that the life expectancy of the virus in a Pfizer vaccinated host is short(Bullet 2 and 3). (3 days or less.). How viable transmission is in that short window, likely has not been studied.

From the Pfizer site: [link in a separate post]
  • Immunization of non-human primates (rhesus macaques) with BNT162b2, a nucleoside-modified messenger RNA (modRNA) candidate that expresses the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein, resulted in strong anti-viral effects against an infectious SARS-CoV-2 challenge
  • BNT162b2 immunization prevented lung infection in 100% of the SARS-CoV-2 challenged rhesus macaques, with no viral RNA detected in the lower respiratory tract of immunized and challenged animals. The BNT162b2 vaccination also cleared the nose of detectable viral RNA in 100% of the SARS-CoV-2 challenged rhesus macaques within 3 days after the infection
  • The BNT162b2 vaccine candidate induced SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies in rhesus macaques, pseudovirus neutralizing antibodies in mice, and strong, antigen-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in mice and macaques
 
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