Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[danlb_2000]

So here’s my question regarding Disney removing the social distancing and mask requirements. Biden plans to have all adults in the U.S. able to start getting their first shots by the beginning of May. Ideally, by the Fourth of July, most adults who want the vaccine will have gotten both doses. Yet Biden made it a point to emphasize “small” gatherings for the Fourth if all goes well with vaccinations. It has also been reported that Disney plans to continue their mask requirements through this year.

In discussion boards here, fireworks and parades continue to be talked about returning in a limited capacity, with the need for social distancing. If these don’t return until mid-summer, won’t masks and social distancing no longer be necessary? If all adults, including cast members, have been eligible and able to get vaccinated, then isn’t there no reason why a full return to normal capacity without masks by mid-summer if all goes well?

It's really a question of how long it takes to get everyone vaccinated. As @GoofGoof pointed out after Biden's speech, from the time a person get's their first dose, it can be up to 6 weeks before they are fully protected which would mean having everyone at least starting on their first dose by the third week of May. We are doing good, but probably not that good.

Then there is the questions of un-vaccinated children. Yes, children are generally at low risk, but is Disney willing to take the risk.

 

[Lilofan]

Anyone entering the US across any border should have to prove vaccination or negative Covid test.

You forgot some of the ones crossing into TX and AZ with relative ease.

 

[drizgirl]

You forgot some of the ones crossing into TX and AZ with relative ease.

I didn't forget anyone. I said should. They should all have to prove vaccination or negative test.

 

[Lilofan]

I didn't forget anyone. I said should. They should all have to prove vaccination or negative test.

You didn't understand my post. The ones crossing illegally.

 

[drizgirl]

You didn't understand my post. The ones crossing illegally.

That's exactly who I was talking about.

 

[danlb_2000]

That's exactly who I was talking about.

How exactly do we get proof of vaccinations from people we don't know about?

 

[Lilofan]

That's exactly who I was talking about.

Still don't but that's ok.

 

[GoofGoof]

So here’s my question regarding Disney removing the social distancing and mask requirements. Biden plans to have all adults in the U.S. able to start getting their first shots by the beginning of May. Ideally, by the Fourth of July, most adults who want the vaccine will have gotten both doses. Yet Biden made it a point to emphasize “small” gatherings for the Fourth if all goes well with vaccinations. It has also been reported that Disney plans to continue their mask requirements through this year.

In discussion boards here, fireworks and parades continue to be talked about returning in a limited capacity, with the need for social distancing. If these don’t return until mid-summer, won’t masks and social distancing no longer be necessary? If all adults, including cast members, have been eligible and able to get vaccinated, then isn’t there no reason why a full return to normal capacity without masks by mid-summer if all goes well?

It’s possible. There are different forms of distancing that should be relaxed at different times:

• By the Summer it’s likely Disney has relaxed most or all distancing on ride vehicles themselves. Think of this as the airline rules, you still wear a mask but you can sit closer than 6 feet to the next person. Since rides are generally less than 15 mins this should really be no issue.
• By the Summer it’s also possible Disney has relaxed distancing rules on outdoor gatherings like night shows. We’ve seen through various events over the course of the pandemic that outdoor in a group and especially outdoor with masks on is much less of a risk than indoor. This could be further extended to outdoor queues and lines to get into parks.
• What‘s less known is when will distancing in indoor queues is relaxed. Indoor is higher risk than outdoor so it could be a little longer. As long as masks are required it’s less of a problem.
• Distancing while dining indoors is probably the last thing to go since you are indoor without a mask for an extended period of time.

So at some point in Summer (maybe July 4th timeframe) after everyone who wants it has been vaccinated it’s possible they have done the first 2 bullets which allows them to expand park capacity and extend hours which in turn allows for larger crowds and makes night shows and other entertainment economic and also needed. It’s also possible they still require masks and distancing while dining or indoors at the same time. So it’s possible that for a brief period both statements are true: parades, night shows and larger crowds are back, but masks and some form of distancing are still required.

 

[danlb_2000]

It’s possible. There are different forms of distancing that should be relaxed at different times:

• By the Summer it’s likely Disney has relaxed most or all distancing on ride vehicles themselves. Think of this as the airline rules, you still wear a mask but you can sit closer than 6 feet to the next person. Since rides are generally less than 15 mins this should really be no issue.
• By the Summer it’s also possible Disney has relaxed distancing rules on outdoor gatherings like night shows. We’ve seen through various events over the course of the pandemic that outdoor in a group and especially outdoor with masks on is much less of a risk than indoor. This could be further extended to outdoor queues and lines to get into parks.
• What‘s less known is when will distancing in indoor queues is relaxed. Indoor is higher risk than outdoor so it could be a little longer. As long as masks are required it’s less of a problem.
• Distancing while dining indoors is probably the last thing to go since you are indoor without a mask for an extended period of time.

So at some point in Summer (maybe July 4th timeframe) after everyone who wants it has been vaccinated it’s possible they have done the first 2 bullets which allows them to expand park capacity and extend hours which in turn allows for larger crowds and makes night shows and other entertainment economic and also needed. It’s also possible they still require masks and distancing while dining or indoors at the same time. So it’s possible that for a brief period both statements are true: parades, night shows and larger crowds are back, but masks and some form of distancing are still required.

... and bullet one is already starting to happen.

 

[GoofGoof]

It's really a question of how long it takes to get everyone vaccinated. As @GoofGoof pointed out after Biden's speech, from the time a person get's their first dose, it can be up to 6 weeks before they are fully protected which would mean having everyone at least starting on their first dose by the third week of May. We are doing good, but probably not that good.

Then there is the questions of un-vaccinated children. Yes, children are generally at low risk, but is Disney willing to take the risk.

It will be interesting to see how people think about kids. Based on the frantic push to reopen all schools 5 days a week physically I would guess the public sentiment is that kids don’t need to be vaccinated. Of course schools in many areas are requiring masks still and are doing some from of distancing so it could be that Disney keeps masks and some distancing around longer to protect kids. If Covid is still around I know I won’t feel totally comfortable until my kids get the vaccine. It seems like I may be in the minority though.

 

[lisa12000]

Amen. That’s my hope too. If you look at their cases the upward trend just started too. No lock it is a true 3rd wave and even if it is it won’t peak for a few weeks or months. If we get enough people vaccinated quickly enough we should avoid it ever ramping up. My hope is the most it does is slow our downward trend temporarily and only in places where vaccine acceptance stalls around 50% or less.

just to reply to this.

The upward trend for a few days in the UK was due to 1.6 million tests being done through the week per day. This was compared to an average of 800,000 tests per day the previous week. We are all testing secondary (11 plus) school children twice a week with LFT and will do for the foreseeable future. We have a couple of tweeters that break down the age ranges and positive test amongst the 19 plus are falling and there has been an increased in 11-19 - and this is mainly a statistical artefact due to the massively increased testing. We are looking more at hospitalisations/deaths for easing of lockdown and they are trending down significantly thank goodness.

Interestingly the figures for yesterday and today have been around 10% lower than the same days last weekend - mainly due the less testing of school children on these days. All I am saying is that we aren't seeing an upward trend at all really - at worst cases are flat but actually due to the increased testing our positivity rate is still coming down. For just PCR tests its about 2.5% but if you include the LFT its actually less than 1% positivity.

Also, we have am massive ramp up in vaccinations coming this week - we did 580,000 yesterday and govt suggesting we could see a million a day this coming week due to increase in supply of AZ and Pfizer - we are also due to get supplies of Moderna very soon and NovaVax are going to seek approval of the next 2 weeks. Like you guys we are hoping to get all adults at least one dose by beginning of June and perhaps before this.

Funnily enough, if we talk about vaccine passports/air corridors I am far more confident in one with the US due to our similar vaccine roll out than I am with Europe who are frankly making a pigs ear of it all - and playing politics yet again with AZ!

 

[GoofGoof]

just to reply to this.

The upward trend for a few days in the UK was due to 1.6 million tests being done through the week per day. This was compared to an average of 800,000 tests per day the previous week. We are all testing secondary (11 plus) school children twice a week with LFT and will do for the foreseeable future. We have a couple of tweeters that break down the age ranges and positive test amongst the 19 plus are falling and there has been an increased in 11-19 - and this is mainly a statistical artefact due to the massively increased testing. We are looking more at hospitalisations/deaths for easing of lockdown and they are trending down significantly thank goodness.

Interestingly the figures for yesterday and today have been around 10% lower than the same days last weekend - mainly due the less testing of school children on these days. All I am saying is that we aren't seeing an upward trend at all really - at worst cases are flat but actually due to the increased testing our positivity rate is still coming down. For just PCR tests its about 2.5% but if you include the LFT its actually less than 1% positivity.

Also, we have am massive ramp up in vaccinations coming this week - we did 580,000 yesterday and govt suggesting we could see a million a day this coming week due to increase in supply of AZ and Pfizer - we are also due to get supplies of Moderna very soon and NovaVax are going to seek approval of the next 2 weeks. Like you guys we are hoping to get all adults at least one dose by beginning of June and perhaps before this.

Funnily enough, if we talk about vaccine passports/air corridors I am far more confident in one with the US due to our similar vaccine roll out than I am with Europe who are frankly making a pigs ear of it all - and playing politics yet again with AZ!

Great news for the UK. From a purely Disney perspective I’m sure they will be very happy if the US starts allowing regular travel from Canada and the UK. I think Brazil will be a while but 2 out of 3 would still be pretty good for business.

 

[BrianLo]

I’m feeling reasonably optimistic as well that the US won’t have a major spike again. Which is a bit of a change from a 4-6 weeks ago. The vaccine rollout has been surprisingly solid for you guys.

Part of this is because the bar has been raised (or lowered) so many times that what we are calling a spike is a bit meaningless. The US will probably continue to hang around its current plateau far longer than it should, which is still equivalent to the summer spike, but everyone is desensitized to it. However, the plateau will be covering up what likely would have been another fairly significant uptick. After a plateau, as more vaccines enter the wild, we’ll suddenly see a major downward trend.

This doesn’t mean vaccines are going to be efficacious enough yet to stop the pandemic, but I think the volume of vaccines are currently enough to make up for the loose restrictions. What most of the world would refer to as a spike the US context is just a tolerant baseline. In terms of consumer confidence I think should be good enough to get by.

 

[mmascari]

It will be interesting to see how people think about kids. Based on the frantic push to reopen all schools 5 days a week physically I would guess the public sentiment is that kids don’t need to be vaccinated. Of course schools in many areas are requiring masks still and are doing some from of distancing so it could be that Disney keeps masks and some distancing around longer to protect kids. If Covid is still around I know I won’t feel totally comfortable until my kids get the vaccine. It seems like I may be in the minority though.

After a year now, it’s shameful that every classroom cannot turn over all its air as fast as an airplane does.

Get the spread low enough, watch for flare ups, contain it, vaccination will not matter.

 

[GoofGoof]

After a year now, it’s shameful that every classroom cannot turn over all its air as fast as an airplane does.

Get the spread low enough, watch for flare ups, contain it, vaccination will not matter.

Its fine to go to 3 feet vs 6 feet for distancing, but that only works with masks too. I’d prefer kids to actually get the vaccine instead of going back to school in the Fall with masks and even 3 feet of distancing. They aren’t doing the Full range of extracurricular activities either. I think it’s very short sighted to just ignore kids when it comes to vaccinations. It’s possible that once we get to Fall Covid is gone and vaccinations won’t matter, but much more likely it’s still around in some capacity and that means some form of restrictions for kids. Another partially lost school year. That’s tragic considering the low risk vaccines present and how easy it would be to just ramp up trials now.

Edit: on the Disney parks front, a change to 3 feet for distancing would immediately relax distancing on just about all ride vehicles and also allow queue distancing to shrink. That’s good news for expanding capacity

 

[hopemax]

So here’s my question regarding Disney removing the social distancing and mask requirements. Biden plans to have all adults in the U.S. able to start getting their first shots by the beginning of May. Ideally, by the Fourth of July, most adults who want the vaccine will have gotten both doses. Yet Biden made it a point to emphasize “small” gatherings for the Fourth if all goes well with vaccinations. It has also been reported that Disney plans to continue their mask requirements through this year.

In discussion boards here, fireworks and parades continue to be talked about returning in a limited capacity, with the need for social distancing. If these don’t return until mid-summer, won’t masks and social distancing no longer be necessary? If all adults, including cast members, have been eligible and able to get vaccinated, then isn’t there no reason why a full return to normal capacity without masks by mid-summer if all goes well?

We aren't going to know if that is true until we get there. There have been so many stupid predictions about when this would be over for the last 12 months. It's apparently not stopping with predictions that April 30 is a fair date, even though the graphic from the NY Times from yesterday predicted reaching the 70% vaccination rate around July 7th. There is way too much credit given to how well Americans will do over the next couple months, and way to little humility given toward nature and the lack of experience any of us have on backside of pandemics. On one hand you've got people begging to just be told the truth, even if it's "I don't know." Yet, anytime anyone gives an answer that isn't "this all ends by summer," the accusations fly about sandbagging, scaring people or lying. So no, I don't believe people are open to the truth; they've already decided the timeline and anything else is unacceptable.

I saw a quote yesterday about optimism in the pandemic. "Optimism is what got us here." Meaning, optimism, the idea that "it will be fine," is what drove people to gather when they shouldn't, take less precautions than they should have. Optimism is how we ended up with 550K dead instead of a lower amount. It didn't have to be like this, if we had been more serious when we needed to be, instead of waiting for things to get bad to recognize how bad it could be and not "it will be fine." We will get there eventually. But promoting a path that does too much too soon, leads to more tick marks in the tally. The final numbers tallied for long covid complications, hospitalizations, deaths are just as much of a loss as the 1,437,235 case or 123,300th death, etc. They all matter, and they all are painful for the people living those moments. I get the impression that since the numbers are less bad and not horrible, it's the same as if they had reached the statistically inconsequential point already.

****

Snow update from CO. 21" and still falling! New record for us, personally, and worst storm since 2003 for the region. Although, watching the storm was like watching Covid trends. The original forecast said it would start Friday night, but the meteorologists saying that the storm was moving slower and so Saturday midday would be a better target. We woke up Saturday to nothing, and the Twitter trolls and expert haters just started throwing crap all around, toward the models, to the changing timeline and snow totals, to the people doing the meteorological reporting. It started snowing about 3PM, but because of so much radiant heat in the metro area, it wasn't sticking. We went to bed with only 2". Woke up this morning to 10" and it's been a blizzard most of the day. Thankfully, the power has held out, with only a few flickering moments. We got exactly what was predicted, and nary a "mea culpa, the experts were right," to be found. Predictions for meteorological events and infectious disease events is not easy to do, and we have come so far with both over the last 100 years. That doesn't mean we should expect these fields to be omniscient and if they can't be 100% sure, say nothing. A lot of lives have been saved through better predictions, but there is still so much more to learn.

 

[DisneyFan32]

Its fine to go to 3 feet vs 6 feet for distancing, but that only works with masks too. I’d prefer kids to actually get the vaccine instead of going back to school in the Fall with masks and even 3 feet of distancing. They aren’t doing the Full range of extracurricular activities either. I think it’s very short sighted to just ignore kids when it comes to vaccinations. It’s possible that once we get to Fall Covid is gone and vaccinations won’t matter, but much more likely it’s still around in some capacity and that means some form of restrictions for kids. Another partially lost school year. That’s tragic considering the low risk vaccines present and how easy it would be to just ramp up trials now.

Edit: on the Disney parks front, a change to 3 feet for distancing would immediately relax distancing on just about all ride vehicles and also allow queue distancing to shrink. That’s good news for expanding capacity

By Fall, maybe after all kids got vaccinated then the schools may lose social distancing and masks early this fall as cases are low enough. I bet a lot of kids may go back to school this fall without masks and social distancing after they got vaccinated soon. By the way, is masks and social distancing will go away for adults by a few months if they got all vaccinated? Indoor dining may lose masks and social distancing like Chuck E. Cheese's, etc by summer...Other theme parks besides Disney like Six Flags and Universal may lose masks and social distancing in few months maybe?

 

[mmascari]

Its fine to go to 3 feet vs 6 feet for distancing, but that only works with masks too. I’d prefer kids to actually get the vaccine instead of going back to school in the Fall with masks and even 3 feet of distancing. They aren’t doing the Full range of extracurricular activities either. I think it’s very short sighted to just ignore kids when it comes to vaccinations. It’s possible that once we get to Fall Covid is gone and vaccinations won’t matter, but much more likely it’s still around in some capacity and that means some form of restrictions for kids. Another partially lost school year. That’s tragic considering the low risk vaccines present and how easy it would be to just ramp up trials now.

Edit: on the Disney parks front, a change to 3 feet for distancing would immediately relax distancing on just about all ride vehicles and also allow queue distancing to shrink. That’s good news for expanding capacity

I would too. The point was, we’re not blindly rushing to just put kids back in school. We should be putting the mitigation steps in place that make sense to get kids back in school. Almost everything in school can be adjusted to deal, almost normal. Ditch the useless stuff we didn’t know was useless a year ago, but do now.

Masks
Ventilation
Testing
Vaccinating teachers/staff

Masks are the least normal thing, but certainly possible. Packed lunch rooms another, but also workable. And if we drive spread low enough in general, it would be enough. It’s not the school extracurricular activities with problems. It’s the personal ones that ditch other efforts.

Even Disney can do many of these. Not all, as there’re not going to surveillance test guests. But they should surveillance test cast members, get them vaccinated. And crank up the airflow and exchange on all indoor areas.

 

[GoofGoof]

We aren't going to know if that is true until we get there. There have been so many stupid predictions about when this would be over for the last 12 months. It's apparently not stopping with predictions that April 30 is a fair date, even though the graphic from the NY Times from yesterday predicted reaching the 70% vaccination rate around July 7th. There is way too much credit given to how well Americans will do over the next couple months, and way to little humility given toward nature and the lack of experience any of us have on backside of pandemics. On one hand you've got people begging to just be told the truth, even if it's "I don't know." Yet, anytime anyone gives an answer that isn't "this all ends by summer," the accusations fly about sandbagging, scaring people or lying. So no, I don't believe people are open to the truth; they've already decided the timeline and anything else is unacceptable.

I saw a quote yesterday about optimism in the pandemic. "Optimism is what got us here." Meaning, optimism, the idea that "it will be fine," is what drove people to gather when they shouldn't, take less precautions than they should have. Optimism is how we ended up with 550K dead instead of a lower amount. It didn't have to be like this, if we had been more serious when we needed to be, instead of waiting for things to get bad to recognize how bad it could be and not "it will be fine." We will get there eventually. But promoting a path that does too much too soon, leads to more tick marks in the tally. The final numbers tallied for long covid complications, hospitalizations, deaths are just as much of a loss as the 1,437,235 case or 123,300th death, etc. They all matter, and they all are painful for the people living those moments. I get the impression that since the numbers are less bad and not horrible, it's the same as if they had reached the statistically inconsequential point already.

****

Snow update from CO. 21" and still falling! New record for us, personally, and worst storm since 2003 for the region. Although, watching the storm was like watching Covid trends. The original forecast said it would start Friday night, but the meteorologists saying that the storm was moving slower and so Saturday midday would be a better target. We woke up Saturday to nothing, and the Twitter trolls and expert haters just started throwing crap all around, toward the models, to the changing timeline and snow totals, to the people doing the meteorological reporting. It started snowing about 3PM, but because of so much radiant heat in the metro area, it wasn't sticking. We went to bed with only 2". Woke up this morning to 10" and it's been a blizzard most of the day. Thankfully, the power has held out, with only a few flickering moments. We got exactly what was predicted, and nary a "mea culpa, the experts were right," to be found. Predictions for meteorological events and infectious disease events is not easy to do, and we have come so far with both over the last 100 years. That doesn't mean we should expect these fields to be omniscient and if they can't be 100% sure, say nothing. A lot of lives have been saved through better predictions, but there is still so much more to learn.

It’s just plain silly to blame optimism for how things have gone with covid. If anything many of the people not following covid protocols in the past year did it in the name of pessimism. The going narrative was we didn’t know when covid would end of if it ever would so we had to just learn to live with it. If people stayed optimistic that the end would come and successful vaccines would be developed we may have been better off.

I see no reason not to be optimistic about the vacines and the vaccine rollout today. What’s happening right now is nothing short of miraculous and will most likely go down in history as one of the greatest scientific achievements of modern days. There’s nothing wrong with feeling optimistic about how things are going at all. Just because people are optimistic that the end is in sight and the vaccine rollout is going great doesn’t mean they are not wearing masks or distancing or following other protocols.

On the issue of wanting to know the truth and sandbagging I think the latest remarks from Biden tell us all we need to know. They corrected the past mistakes made with conflicting stories and overly cautious timelines. They changed the return to normal from 2022 with the potential to see family at Christmas into family gatherings for July 4th, a very large increase in the timeline based on expected vaccine rollout which makes a lot of sense. They also moved up the timeline for when all adults would have access to the vaccine from end of July to mid-May. Again, a very large increase in the timeline and as is the case with the return to some version of normal projections it’s also backed by actual projections of vaccine rollout, not just an arbitrary date. So yes, people want to know the true projections and not some conservative estimate. If they really felt the timeline needed to be longer than say it, but explain why. All of the talk of July 4th was very carefully caveated to include the disclaimer that it’s only possible if enough people are vaccinated. That was smart.

As far as April 30 goes, the pandemic won’t be over but if we reach the vaccine projections that the manufacturers have set we will have a large number of people vaccinated. There’s no reason to think we won’t see a sharp decline in cases as a result. Nobody knows what level of vaccination we need to get to. Recently one of epidemiologists from the CDC said their agency was projecting we needed to get to 60% immunity to reach a level of herd immunity. I’ve seen projections all over the place, most higher than that, but in mot cases they are saying higher so that people don’t get complacent and stop getting vaccinated. A valid reason to estimate higher. We also need to see how many of the unvaccinated people are naturally immune. That number will grow by the Summer. So take total percent vaccinated plus unvaccinated but naturally immune and subtract anyone who got vaccinated but it didn’t work and that’s the true immune number. At some point we may need to adjust for natural immunity that no longer works since we are over a year now on natural infections.

In conclusion I still feel our best hope is to get as many people as possible vaccinated and do it as quickly as possible. I believe 100% that promoting all of the positives that can come from being vaccinated will attract a lot more people who are on the fence about doing it than projecting a lot of negative things. I think Biden laying out a goal of 4th of July parties is a great way to promote vaccinations. Optimism is the best way to get to our goal of getting enough people vaccinated. The talk of a return to normal in 2022 or Christmas made no sense, helped nobody and only hurt the cause.

 

[correcaminos]

You didn't understand my post. The ones crossing illegally.

Not again. This has been refuted and I've posted articles that say this is not a concern. Illegals are here by legal means most of the time and just staying past allowed, not sneaky stuff.