Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[Polkadotdress]

@GoofGoof is not going to be a variant resurgence by fall if all people got vaccines? I'm scared.

I just have to ask...do you have LITERALLY everyone else on this forum blocked? You know there are many people besides @GoofGoof who have contributed data to this thread.

And KUDOS to @GoofGoof for good-naturedly answering the same question over and over and over...

 

[HauntedMansionFLA]

@GoofGoof is not going to be a variant resurgence by fall if all people got vaccines? I'm scared.

Don’t worry. You will be fine.

 

[DisneyFan32]

Don’t worry. You will be fine.

All right back to topic now guys I'm fine now guys.

 

[HauntedMansionFLA]

I wonder how things were over at Blizzard Beach? I’m sure there are YouTube videos from people who need to get a real job I mean celebrities

 

[Turtlekrawl]

I’m optimistic that we are on the right track. But this is going to take time. We are seeing resurgence in some areas that were thought to have reached herd immunity. Manaus, Brazil for example:

DEFINE_ME

Good news is that we can adjust mRNA vaccines quickly.

 

[seascape]

There is a big problem just looking at the positivity rate from the tests alone. First, most people who are sick will get tested.
However, places like NY keep advertising that even if you have recovered from Covid19 or have had the vaccine keep get tested weekly. So, second places like NY and surrounding areas are testing people to intentionally lower the positivity rate. The NY Times by listing the cases per 100,000 is the number to use and ignore the testing rate because most states aren't throwing away taxpayer money testing those who already have antibodies and are not in danger. How else can one explain that NY is at the top of cases per 100,000 and at the bottom of the positivity rate, other than NY internationally over testing to make themselves look better than they are! Maybe the NY Times or some other news outlet should take a random test of people in every state to see what the rate really is and not base it on numbers that are not comparable.

 

[WondersOfLife]

I wonder how things were over at Blizzard Beach? I’m sure there are YouTube videos from people who need to get a real job I mean celebrities

If you’re making an income, then it’s a real job. Don’t be upset just because you’re not having fun and others are.

 

[ParentsOf4]

There is a big problem just looking at the positivity rate from the tests alone. First, most people who are sick will get tested.
However, places like NY keep advertising that even if you have recovered from Covid19 or have had the vaccine keep get tested weekly. So, second places like NY and surrounding areas are testing people to intentionally lower the positivity rate. The NY Times by listing the cases per 100,000 is the number to use and ignore the testing rate because most states aren't throwing away taxpayer money testing those who already have antibodies and are not in danger. How else can one explain that NY is at the top of cases per 100,000 and at the bottom of the positivity rate, other than NY internationally over testing to make themselves look better than they are! Maybe the NY Times or some other news outlet should take a random test of people in every state to see what the rate really is and not base it on numbers that are not comparable.

Are you suggesting that New York is manipulating its COVID numbers?

Where’s the evidence for this?

Oh wait...

Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll (Published 2021)

The intervention was the earliest action yet known in an effort by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo that concealed how many nursing home residents died in the pandemic.

www.nytimes.com

 

[GhostHost1000]

Are you suggesting that New York is manipulating its COVID numbers?

Where’s the evidence for this?

Oh wait...

Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll (Published 2021)

The intervention was the earliest action yet known in an effort by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo that concealed how many nursing home residents died in the pandemic.

www.nytimes.com

It’s a shame the a pandemic which has claimed a lot of lives has become so political about how things are reported rather than all of us coming together as a country to fight it together. Goes to show you how much selfishness about power and party takes priority over individuals...and this goes for both sides

 

[seascape]

Are you suggesting that New York is manipulating its COVID numbers?

Where’s the evidence for this?

Oh wait...

Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll (Published 2021)

The intervention was the earliest action yet known in an effort by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo that concealed how many nursing home residents died in the pandemic.

www.nytimes.com

I am not saying NY is manipulating their numbers. However, yesterday they reported Saturday's numbers and based on the numbers they reported, they had 18.99% of all the new cases reported in the US but claim they are obe of the best states for handling Covid19 because their testing rate is low. One number does not agree with the other and that is a fact.

 

[DisneyCane]

Update for the week of 2/21-2/28;

For the week of 2/21-2/28, there were 40,025 new cases, 684,254 new tests and 5.85% new case positivity for the week.

Week over week, this represents a 3.4% decrease in new cases on 3.2% more tests with a 6.4% decrease in new case positivity.

The rate of decrease in reported cases has slowed but the fact that it is decreasing with increased testing is a still a good trend which will hopefully continue. As the number of fully vaccinated people increases, it will soon be a high enough percentage to have an effect on lowering the daily cases. Not necessarily from reduced community spread since most are targeted at 65+, but simply removing enough people from the "infectible pool" to lower the case number.

Updating the weekly numbers where I calculate the approximate number of new tests and the weekly positivity:

For the week of 3/1-2=3/7, there were 35,058 new cases, 627,701 new tests and 5.59% new case positivity for the week.

Week over week, this represents a 12.4% decrease in new cases on 8.3% fewer tests with a 4.5% decrease in new case positivity.

Continued trend in the right direction. It will be interesting to see at what percent of the population fully vaccinated, the vaccines have a significant effect on lowering case numbers. Since the vast majority of vaccinations have taken place in the population most likely to have taken precautions previously, I don't think that effect has really kicked in yet.

 

[tpac24]

I wonder how things were over at Blizzard Beach? I’m sure there are YouTube videos from people who need to get a real job I mean celebrities

I was just watching a video and looks like you don't have to wear mask while walking around. Is that correct? I wonder why that can't be done in the parks?

 

[Touchdown]

If you want to be weary of case numbers of % positivity fine, while it lags new cases by 2 weeks hospitalization numbers are much harder to fudge and less prone to error. And guess what they continue to downtrend:

 

[DisneyCane]

Updating the data from Florida's long term care facility residents and staff. At this point, all residents and staff who wished to be vaccinated should have received both doses.
View attachment 536420
From 1/18-2/28, the number of currently COVID-19 positive residents decreased 79.5% and the number of currently COVID-19 positive staff has decreased 77%. The seven day rolling average of daily reported cases in FL declined 55.4% in the same time period. Although the LTC data set looks at currently positive people, it should be roughly comparable to the daily case number. The fact that the number of COVID-19 positive LTC facility staff, who spend their non-working hours in the community, declined 40% more than the decrease in cases in the general population seems to show the effectiveness of the vaccines in preventing infections (not just symptoms).

I wish I had the data for the vaccine acceptance rate of LTC residents and staff as it would really help to be able to extrapolate to the general population once vaccines are more widely available.

Quick update on the Florida long term care facility residents and staff. At this point, all residents and staff who wished to be vaccinated are at least a week past their second dose.

As of 3/6 there are 530 positive residents and 417 positive staff. On 1/18 there were 3,650 and 2,738 respectively. That represents a decrease of 85.5% in LTC residents and 84.8% in LTC staff from 1/18-3/7. Based on the data from worldometers.info, the seven day rolling average of the number of daily cases in FL declined 60.56% in the same period.

Since LTC staff are out in the community when not at work, the additional decline among that population can reasonably be attributed to the vaccinations and gives an idea of the effectiveness of the vaccines in preventing infections.

If not for the vaccinations, it can be expected that there would be 1,080 currently positive staff. Therefore, it appears that the vaccination program among this population has prevented 663 infections, making the vaccination program (at whatever the acceptance level was) approximately 61% effective in preventing infections. I wish there was a way to know what the acceptance rate of the vaccine was for LTC staff in FL because then we could calculate the effectiveness more accurately. For example, if the acceptance rate was 70% (a reasonable possibility based on the polls referenced by @GoofGoof) it would indicate that the vaccines are 87% effective at preventing infections in the real world.

Caveat to this post, as I've said before, it isn't a perfect analysis because I'm using currently positive LTC data from staff tested at least every two weeks to daily case data in the general population but I would expect them to track pretty close.

 

[DisneyCane]

I was just watching a video and looks like you don't have to wear mask while walking around. Is that correct? I wonder why that can't be done in the parks?

I think the outdoor mask requirement in the parks (and even DS) is more about not wanting the enforcement nightmare of people required to put them on every time they go indoors.

As a possible harbinger of things to come with respect to masks, it appears that Walmart may have dropped the requirement in locations where there is no government mask mandate. I was at a location in FL where there is no county or municipal mandate and there was a giant sign saying that face coverings are recommended while shopping. This location previously had a sign that Walmart required face coverings even though there was never a county or municipal mandate.

I know that Walmart is quite different from WDW (well you could argue there are more and more operational similarities) but I thought it was interesting because they are a private company with a similar army of attorneys assessing liability.

 

[seascape]

California is now down to 11 cases per 100,000. Disneyland can finally open up on April fools day. The US is well on its way to being under 10 new cases per 100,000. With an estimated population of 332.9 million, an average of 33,290 cases a day is the current goal and that is only 17.5% less that the number reported yesterday. In fact yesterday's number of 40,336 is 12.1 per 100,000 nationwide. The fact is we are so close to the end of this that we can taste it. However, we still need another month of careful activity so we can have a normal Summer and enjoy Disney.

 

[GoofGoof]

Quick update on the Florida long term care facility residents and staff. At this point, all residents and staff who wished to be vaccinated are at least a week past their second dose.

As of 3/6 there are 530 positive residents and 417 positive staff. On 1/18 there were 3,650 and 2,738 respectively. That represents a decrease of 85.5% in LTC residents and 84.8% in LTC staff from 1/18-3/7. Based on the data from worldometers.info, the seven day rolling average of the number of daily cases in FL declined 60.56% in the same period.

Since LTC staff are out in the community when not at work, the additional decline among that population can reasonably be attributed to the vaccinations and gives an idea of the effectiveness of the vaccines in preventing infections.

If not for the vaccinations, it can be expected that there would be 1,080 currently positive staff. Therefore, it appears that the vaccination program among this population has prevented 663 infections, making the vaccination program (at whatever the acceptance level was) approximately 61% effective in preventing infections. I wish there was a way to know what the acceptance rate of the vaccine was for LTC staff in FL because then we could calculate the effectiveness more accurately. For example, if the acceptance rate was 70% (a reasonable possibility based on the polls referenced by @GoofGoof, it would indicate that the vaccines are 87% effective at preventing infections in the real world.

Caveat to this post, as I've said before, it isn't a perfect analysis because I'm using currently positive LTC data from staff tested at least every two weeks to daily case data in the general population but I would expect them to track pretty close.

Based on studies in the UK and Israel the 87% sounds pretty reasonable.

 

[GoofGoof]

There is a big problem just looking at the positivity rate from the tests alone. First, most people who are sick will get tested.
However, places like NY keep advertising that even if you have recovered from Covid19 or have had the vaccine keep get tested weekly. So, second places like NY and surrounding areas are testing people to intentionally lower the positivity rate. The NY Times by listing the cases per 100,000 is the number to use and ignore the testing rate because most states aren't throwing away taxpayer money testing those who already have antibodies and are not in danger. How else can one explain that NY is at the top of cases per 100,000 and at the bottom of the positivity rate, other than NY internationally over testing to make themselves look better than they are! Maybe the NY Times or some other news outlet should take a random test of people in every state to see what the rate really is and not base it on numbers that are not comparable.

Not sure I understand what you mean by “advertising”. Are you suggesting people are voluntarily getting tested every week for no reason just to lower the percent positive? Does anyone care enough to go and get a q-tip jammed up their nose far enough to touch their brain every week just to fudge the stats. I could understand if an employer requires weekly testing, then you have no choice. For the people I know that have to be tested for work there is no exception if you have either tested positive or been vaccinated. I actually think we can use the vaccinated data to track how effective the vaccines work. It would be a negative to have those people stop being tested. We still don’t know for sure that anyone who tested positive previously is immune and we don’t know for how long. It’s possible that people who tested positive a year ago are still immune and can’t carry or spread Covid but we don’t know when the immunity lapses. For the employer you also run into privacy concerns as some workers may not want their company or their co-workers to know they had Covid so it’s more practical to just test everyone.

Percent positive is still a good indicator of whether the level of testing is exposing most of the cases in the community. Looking at case numbers alone doesn’t tell the whole story. When percent positive is above 5 and definitely when above 10 there is a good chance that not enough testing is being done to catch the vast majority of positives. In an extreme example if I test nobody I have zero test positive but that’s not a good indicator of the level of community spread. If a state has 40 positive per hundred thousand and a percent positive of 3% and another state has 30 positive per hundred thousand and a percent positive of 8% there is a very good chance their community spread is pretty similar as the state with the higher percent positive is likely undercounting positives and the state with the lower is likely capturing most. Positive tests combined with percent positive need to be looked at together. This has been the case since very early on.

 

[seascape]

Not sure I understand what you mean by “advertising”. Are you suggesting people are voluntarily getting tested every week for no reason just to lower the percent positive? Does anyone care enough to go and get a q-tip jammed up their nose far enough to touch their brain every week just to fudge the stats. I could understand if an employer requires weekly testing, then you have no choice. For the people I know that have to be tested for work there is no exception if you have either tested positive or been vaccinated. I actually think we can use the vaccinated data to track how effective the vaccines work. It would be a negative to have those people stop being tested. We still don’t know for sure that anyone who tested positive previously is immune and we don’t know for how long. It’s possible that people who tested positive a year ago are still immune and can’t carry or spread Covid but we don’t know when the immunity lapses. For the employer you also run into privacy concerns as some workers may not want their company or their co-workers to know they had Covid so it’s more practical to just test everyone.

Percent positive is still a good indicator of whether the level of testing is exposing most of the cases in the community. Looking at case numbers alone doesn’t tell the whole story. When percent positive is above 5 and definitely when above 10 there is a good chance that not enough testing is being done to catch the vast majority of positives. In an extreme example if I test nobody I have zero test positive but that’s not a good indicator of the level of community spread. If a state has 40 positive per hundred thousand and a percent positive of 3% and another state has 30 positive per hundred thousand and a percent positive of 8% there is a very good chance their community spread is pretty similar as the state with the higher percent positive is likely undercounting positives and the state with the lower is likely capturing most. Positive tests combined with percent positive need to be looked at together. This has been the case since very early on.

New York is constantly running commercials telling people to get tested weekly or biweekly even if they have recovered from Covid19 or been vaccinated. Why? The reason to get tested is to see if you have it. If you had ir in the past, you know your symptoms and should not get tested unless you are sick. So, why is NY encouraging people to get tested anyway? Is it to lower the percentage of positive results? Or maybe it's just to have the Federal Government pay for more testing and employment that is unnecessary. In either case the result is the same. If you want to know the true rate in each state conduct an independent sample. The way testing is done today is not comparable because each state is doing it differently. So I consider the cases per 100,000 number that scientists said anything over 10 is bad is what should be used. NY, NJ and RI are the 3 worst states for Covid19 according to the independent NY Times and NY and NJ have 48% more cases on Average than number 4 South Carolina.

 

[GoofGoof]

I think the outdoor mask requirement in the parks (and even DS) is more about not wanting the enforcement nightmare of people required to put them on every time they go indoors.

As a possible harbinger of things to come with respect to masks, it appears that Walmart may have dropped the requirement in locations where there is no government mask mandate. I was at a location in FL where there is no county or municipal mandate and there was a giant sign saying that face coverings are recommended while shopping. This location previously had a sign that Walmart required face coverings even though there was never a county or municipal mandate.

I know that Walmart is quite different from WDW (well you could argue there are more and more operational similarities) but I thought it was interesting because they are a private company with a similar army of attorneys assessing liability.

Wasn’t Walmart one of the National chains that said from the start they were implementing a mask policy but their internal policy was that employees were not to enforce it to avoid physical altercations with customers? I think it was Walmart, CVS and maybe a few others that went that route. So individual stores could essentially choose to ignore the rule and let anyone in. Disney has been pretty conservative and pretty strict with their policy so I don’t see that changing now or anytime soon. Once the general public has access to the vaccine and most importantly all the CMs have it to appease the unions it’s possible they relax things. Walmart has no unions to contend with so they can just throw their employees to the wolves. In theory Disney could go with only required indoors but that’s tougher to enforce.

I think they keep masks until the end but start with relaxing distancing. If you see masks and distancing as a one two punch if one gets relaxed first for Disney distancing is the bigger problem, especially on rides. Later this month for Spring Break and into April for DHS the parks are selling out. That means money left on the table. Distancing on ride vehicles drives down ride capacity which limits park capacity limits. Large people eating shows are still on hold due to distancing in the crowd and with performers. Outdoor fireworks and night shows as well. If they relax that they can bring back people eating shows, increase ride capacity and ultimately let more folks in the parks which equals more cash in the door.