Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[DisneyCane]

Holy string of bad words Batman! Not good at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Deep breath! The Thursday over Thursday cases are down around 10%. The positivity is high because tests reported are low. I'd expect a day of an abnormally low positivity in the next few days. Some labs seem to be in the habit of dumping positive results one day and the dumping negative results on another day. These stats need to be looked at week over week, not day to day.

 

[DisneyCane]

Starting 2/8 Colorado will begin 1B2: age 65+ and teachers.

1A is at 90% of 2nd doses for frontline medical. 100% skilled nursing homes 1st dose, 71% 2nd dose
1B1 is 90% 1st dose for first responders/moderate risk healthcare, 34% age 70+ for a total of 47% of 1B

expecting 425,000 doses by March 5th, goal of 55% through 1B2 by that date. Expect 3 weeks to vaccinate teachers.

Are teachers getting priority over 65+? Seems like the only way to vaccinate them all over 3 weeks.

 

[hopemax]

Are teachers getting priority over 65+? Seems like the only way to vaccinate them all over 3 weeks.

I think they are dual queuing. Like a regular line and a fastpass line. Teachers will have their clinics pre-arranged through their schools (like what they did for the LTCs). General folks 65+ are signing up with the hospital networks and are randomly selected.

 

[Figgy1]

Deep breath! The Thursday over Thursday cases are down around 10%. The positivity is high because tests reported are low. I'd expect a day of an abnormally low positivity in the next few days. Some labs seem to be in the habit of dumping positive results one day and the dumping negative results on another day. These stats need to be looked at week over week, not day to day.

There's nothing good at all over the past months. No reason for me to go to Florida even if I could

 

[BrianLo]

At the end of the day, those "specific issues" point to one goal: saving lives.

Even if you don't buy the argument that life is just better being able to drive on the Interstate at 70mph than 20mph, the lives you'd save at 20mph would be offset by the economic disruption that would cause.

The idea that heavy-handed restrictions will always = net lives saved is an illusion.

I don't think your overall point lacks merit, but this is a conversation 20 steps ahead from where we are. It is clear right now that the US has always threaded the needle on the "less" restrictive side and we are still hovering near peak levels of transmissions and deaths.

Certainly there comes a point when policy could cause more harm than good, but I don't get where the argument is coming from when we are still near the peak.

Everyone is always arguing for the US to be less restricted in its policies when it is already quite frankly the most lax country these days (some states differ, but as a whole it's pretty laissez-fare).

Everything is a trade-off. With COVID the trade-off is how much self inflicted economic damage is appropriate to prevent X number of deaths.

Fortunately we now know that this is actually somewhat of a false equivalency. COVID Policy and the economy are correlated, but the actual causation is case load. The only countries that successfully grew their economies last year were the ones who also took the harshest stance. Caseload at the end of the day is what is actually most responsible for tanking the world economies; the response to it is the bystander that can sway things one way or the other.

It's all a bit moot as it's way too late to change the course, but for next pandemic they'll know that the temporary aggressive stance is better for the long run.

 

[DisneyCane]

I think they are dual queuing. Like a regular line and a fastpass line. Teachers will have their clinics pre-arranged through their schools (like what they did for the LTCs). General folks 65+ are signing up with the hospital networks and are randomly selected.

If that's the way they are doing it, they are prioritizing the teachers. If there are 100,000 doses available and 25,000 teachers (I'm just making up numbers) then only 25,000 people 65+ can be vaccinated instead of 50,000 if the teachers came after 65+.

I personally think that 65+ should have been prioritized over everybody except frontline healthcare workers. The latter because they have to treat COVID patients so are exposed a lot more frequently than anybody in the general population. The way to bring the hospitalizations and deaths down as soon as possible is to vaccinate as many in the group with the worst outcomes statistically.

 

[Bill in Atlanta]

There’s a difference between heavy handed permanent restrictions and temporary ones. When it snows up here in the NE they reduce the speed limit on the interstates, sometimes down to 45 MPH. It’s probably disruptive to shipping companies and business but it’s a temporary solution to avoid accidents when conditions are bad. These discussions always go to the extremes of restrictions forever or no restrictions at all. What’s sensible is restrictions while they are necessary which is for the most part what we have. When the situation improves the restrictions are gone.

I agree with you in a general sense. I will add that lowering the speed limit for 2-3 days until the roads clear has very little economic or societal downside. You and I agree that it's a sensible, short-term solution.

But we do not approach year-round Interstate driving laws with a "let's get to 0 Interstate driving deaths at all costs" mentality.

Bringing it back to the virus, many people (myself included) believe that the costs of the restrictions are not being talked about enough.

 

[Disney Experience]

The wife of the 85 yo full time worker (and first responder) got her shot the other day. He told me he took her to the local Publix and they waited to see if shots became available like it had for him days before.
She got the shot. He did this now because he wanted her to get the more effective vaccines. So he wanted to make sure she got a shot before the less effective shots got approved. If I was in his shoes I would have done the same.

 

[Disney Experience]

Oh Disney wanted me (They emailed me) to be involved in a paid 90 minute survey. I had to answer numerous questions to prequalify. When it asked if I was posted a lot on a Disney board. I answered yes (i.e. I do that here only). Right after answering that it said I do not qualify, which is what I expected would be the response.

My life is busy as it is, so no loss for me (well technically $150 they would have given me).

 

[Disney Experience]

Starting 2/8 Colorado will begin 1B2: age 65+ and teachers.

1A is at 90% of 2nd doses for frontline medical. 100% skilled nursing homes 1st dose, 71% 2nd dose
1B1 is 90% 1st dose for first responders/moderate risk healthcare, 34% age 70+ for a total of 47% of 1B

expecting 425,000 doses by March 5th, goal of 55% through 1B2 by that date. Expect 3 weeks to vaccinate teachers.

Are those percentages of the people who got the vaccine that wanted it, or of the overall group? If frontline medical has an 90% acceptance of vaccine I am glad. But I think you may mean something else because it would be hard to believe that 100% of everyone in skilled nursing homes have gotten vaccinated (vs just those who wanted or could be vaccinated).

 

[Bill in Atlanta]

Rampant suicides have NOT been a side effect of the last year. Elevated? Yes....bad? Yes.

But it’s a political red herring...it’s along the lines of flu comparisons, cancer comparisons, auto accident comparisons and the like.

So Clark county - “Vegas” to the rest of the world - Reported 12 student suicides from June to December...up from 6 normally...and every person doing the “ma freedom” routine has now demanded schools reopen like its 2018. “We can’t wait”

1 is too much...not saying “acceptable losses”...but that statistical assessment is not correct based on 4,400 students.


You know what a crisis is? Hundreds of thousands of opioid deaths in the backwaters for years. Because they have no money...and their “wing” couldn’t care less.
But how inconvenient is that?

Woefully underfunded mental health is inconvenient too.

I diverted there...but you get the point. Masks and limited restaurants/bars are not causing mass suicides. Just don’t go there.

We know that unemployment sky rocketed from 3.7% to 14.7% when the restrictions started in Spring 2020.
We know that unemployment is correlated with drug addiction, suicide, child abuse/neglect, and the long-term after effects of these.

Google:
unemployment and drug addiction
unemployment and suicide
unemployment and child abuse

And that's just what we know.

We don't know how many people had heart attacks and developed cancer as a result of stress caused by the restrictions. We don't know even know the long-term effects of prolonged mask wearing on kids who have to wear them 8 hours a day at school, 180 days a year - both physically and mentally. Maybe they'll be fine in the long run, but maybe some won't.

We can't just turn a blind eye to the costs these restrictions carry with them. Not if we expect to make the best and most informed decisions about how to move forward.

 

[hopemax]

Are those percentages of the people who got the vaccine that wanted it, or of the overall group? If frontline medical has an 90% acceptance of vaccine I am glad. But I think you may mean something else because it would be hard to believe that 100% of everyone in skilled nursing homes have gotten vaccinated (vs just those who wanted or could be vaccinated).

Yes, there are differences in the "units" between different groups. For LTCs, it's 100% of facilities but is not broken down to %'s of residents/staff. For frontline medical, it's staff. The graphic says 68,500 out of 76,000 people in 1A and 150,300 people out of 167,000 for 1B1. So for CO, at least, uptake among frontline healthcare is high.

 

[Parker in NYC]

So, a doctor did a sort of COVID vaccine symposium at work today via zoom (of course). He alarmed me, saying that the vaccine may not be able to thwart variants. Because of that, and also because of the imperfect efficacy (which he said applies to vaccines in general), we will need to wear masks long after we get the vaccine. He said a year, at the least. I guess since the successful vaccines only have about 7 months of data, there are still a lot of unknowns. I guarantee you that I'm still not going to Disney until 2023.

 

[Bill in Atlanta]

Perhaps you're too young to remember the hoopla and cries of inconvenience and extra cost when:

• seat belts were required by law
• cars had to have air bags
• cars had to pass federal crash dummy tests
• speed limits were reduced as population density increased
• cars had to pass state inspections for safety
• people fined for not following safety laws

But if you're really going to compare driving accidents to COVID, assume 20-car pileups whose frequency increases geometrically over time... and there are people OK with that. They just want to drive fast with no seat belts.

We don't go into vehicle/road safety with a "0 driving deaths at all costs" approach, do we?

And we shouldn't use that approach in any other area of life. Because the restrictions that could get you close to 0 will cause all kinds of problems (even death) in other unforeseen areas.

That's all.

 

[mmascari]

Who gets to draw that line?

Me. I get to draw the line. It's all on me. Didn't anyone tell you?

Errr, maybe someone else......

While I fully expect different levels of government to all have a yardstick, since it's 100% definitely a policy question, there's going to be a natural line too. If policy set's the level significantly higher with more illness allowed, economic impacts will not recover. People will avoid stuff on their own. If policy set's the level significantly lower, people will ignore recommendations. In that middle band, there's lots of room for different policy disagreements.

If I was setting the policy goal, somewhere around 100 deaths a day sounds plausible. That's 100 * 365 = 36,500 a year. I'm sure some will argue it should be lower, and others would be fine with 200, 200 * 365 = 73,000 a year. Both the flu and motor vehicle fatalities are near those ranges, closer to 100 than 200. And many have repeatedly pointed out that we don't take the same disruptive mitigation efforts for those.

Maybe we'll come up with less disruptive mitigations too. The vaccine is the probably the least disruptive, few sore days and mostly happy. But, whatever we do to get infection impacts down, my guess is that most mitigations being removed will require that we get daily death's under at least 200 and are able to keep them there without the mitigation that's being removed.

From covid19.healthdata.org we're currently over 3,000 per day. That feels like a long way to under 200 still.

 

[DisneyDebRob]

We know that unemployment sky rocketed from 3.7% to 14.7% when the restrictions started in Spring 2020.
We know that unemployment is correlated with drug addiction, suicide, child abuse/neglect, and the long-term after effects of these.

Google:
unemployment and drug addiction
unemployment and suicide
unemployment and child abuse

And that's just what we know.

We don't know how many people had heart attacks and developed cancer as a result of stress caused by the restrictions. We don't know even know the long-term effects of prolonged mask wearing on kids who have to wear them 8 hours a day at school, 180 days a year - both physically and mentally. Maybe they'll be fine in the long run, but maybe some won't.

We can't just turn a blind eye to the costs these restrictions carry with them. Not if we expect to make the best and most informed decisions about how to move forward.

Forgot one number..446,000 up to today. Pretty big number. They are only the deaths.. not even going to count thousands upon thousands who will be living with something long term because they got it. Pretty important numbers to leave out whil calculating percentages.

 

[Parker in NYC]

Forgot one number..446,000 up to day. Pretty big number. They are only the deaths.. not even going to count thousands upon thousands who will be leaving with something long term because they got it. Pretty important numbers to leave out whil calculating percentages.

Waiting for someone to say "well, that's life." So, let's just sing it instead:

 

[mmascari]

We don't go into vehicle/road safety with a "0 driving deaths at all costs" approach, do we?

And we shouldn't use that approach in any other area of life. Because the restrictions that could get you close to 0 will cause all kinds of problems (even death) in other unforeseen areas.

That's all.

Is anyone asking for that? Anyone at all?

All those safety measures for vehicle/road safety have the 2018 death per 100,000 population down to 11.18 according to Wikipedia. From a high of 29.36 in 1937, and from 25.67 in 1970.

With 410,000 deaths in less than a year and 330,000,000 people that's 124.24 per 100,0000. There's a lot of distance between 124.24 and either 29.36 or 11.18.

 

[Bill in Atlanta]

Forgot one number..446,000 up to day. Pretty big number. They are only the deaths.. not even going to count thousands upon thousands who will be leaving with something long term because they got it. Pretty important numbers to leave out whil calculating percentages.

If you see what I was replying to, you'll see why those numbers weren't relevant to that specific post.

For the record, of course the number you cite is a central part of this. That goes without saying.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Holy string of bad words Batman! Not good at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some of the resident medical experts here will try to tell you it’s not “bad”

But I don’t have time for that...I’m the Queen of Sheba