Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[Darkprime]

Speaking of cruise ships. Anyone see that documentary on HBO Max about the cruise ships that had covid outbreaks during the early days of the pandemic?

 

[havoc315]

That’s pretty interesting. I wonder how the CDC responds. If they give the green light for this plan for Norwegian it sets a precedent that all other cruise lines can follow. It also sets up a head to head conflict with the Governor of FL. Will he attempt to prohibit this plan? That would be a direct attempt to stifle a business on life support. Quite the pickle

Florida senators push to restart cruises in the US, as some lines plan to base ships offshore

As cruise lines consider basing their ships in more cooperative countries, Florida's legislators want the CDC to let the industry restarted there.

www.usatoday.com

Jurisdiction over ports is funky. And even funkier as to cruise ships — remember, almost none of them sail under an American flag. DCL cruises sail under the Bahamian flag.

I’d say DeSantis has no say as to cruise operations.

 

[CJR]

Just my personal thoughts. OC lifting the mandate would be good for local spots where residents go. Big places like Disney draw guests from all over and should be a tad more conservative.

Honestly, if OC gets there in June, it probably won't be all that long, probably a matter of a month or two, until Disney gets there too. The whole country should be making progress right around the same time, if all goes well. It's a light at the end of a very long tunnel and that is a bit exciting.

 

[Lilofan]

Maybe you should just get all 3 just in case

Any teenager getting Pfizer supposedly gets 100% effectiveness against covid. I wish I was still a teenager.

 

[lisa12000]

Ahhh can some one adopt me abs get me away from the UK please - 60% vacc with one shot and second doses ramping up quickly - but media saying restrictions and mask wearing for another year! And no return to normal in June as projected but restrictions to go on and on.....

Oh and two fully vaccinated people not allowed under any circumstances to meet up inside even if they socially distance abd wear masks

 

[GoofGoof]

Jurisdiction over ports is funky. And even funkier as to cruise ships — remember, almost none of them sail under an American flag. DCL cruises sail under the Bahamian flag.

I’d say DeSantis has no say as to cruise operations.

I know the flag the ship sails under applies to a lot of the employment laws and financial issues. My understanding was that while in port the cruise ship is obligated to follow the national and local laws that exist at the port itself. Since the boarding of the ship would occur in a terminal on US soil I assume they have to follow US laws. If that wasn’t true and they were only required to follow the laws of the flag that they fly they could start sailing now as cruising is allowed in the Bahamas already.

 

[Flugell]

Ahhh can some one adopt me abs get me away from the UK please - 60% vacc with one shot and second doses ramping up quickly - but media saying restrictions and mask wearing for another year! And no return to normal in June as projected but restrictions to go on and on.....

Oh and two fully vaccinated people not allowed under any circumstances to meet up inside even if they socially distance abd wear masks

Having studied the latest government instructions you are totally incorrect.
Or probably, to be fair, the media are. No one has a crystal ball so no one knows for certain what will happen. Boris Johnson’s announced today that at present we remain on track but we too have Covidiots who may mess things up for everyone.

COVID-19 Response - Spring 2021 (Summary)

www.gov.uk

Here is the link for anyone who wants to check. Hope it works because I’m not very technical. It does however say that they will consider removing masks and social distancing in June.
Yes this is the intention, with no guarantees, same as the rest of the world.
It has also been announced that everyone over the age of 18 will be given free lateral flow tests (2 per week) which they will be able to get from vaccination sites, pharmacies or by post. If the lateral flow test comes up positive it is advised that you attend a testing site to confirm the result. The tests are more likely to give a false positive than a false negative. I believe this is real progress and hope everyone takes advantage and follows the advice. Children who attend school, from the age of 11, have been using these tests for about 4 weeks. (Time is from memory so may be a week out either way.)

 

[sullyinMT]

Norwegian will require crew and passengers to be fully vaccinated.

Press Releases

www.nclhltdinvestor.com

https://ml.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/83fef1ea-321e-494d-98e3-298bfb07025c

I wonder if DCL will follow.

Specific to DCL, I’d suspect they’d try to carve an exemption for the throngs of kids via testing. Wouldn’t shock me in the least to see them have vaccine or no sail language for any approved age group, however. More the way Royal Caribbean has said their current docket of summer sailings out of the Bahamas will be conducted.

Of course, if Disney just waits until August when 5+ might be able to start getting vaccinated (dependent on trial data income speed), they could do 5+ only fully vaccinated cruises by October. That lines up with Chapek’s “Fall” comment. Their lacking detail UK sailings will be telling.

Also, I don’t really see the CDC saying “yeah, go for it,” to NCL just a few days after releasing new guidelines.

 

[sullyinMT]

I know the flag the ship sails under applies to a lot of the employment laws and financial issues. My understanding was that while in port the cruise ship is obligated to follow the national and local laws that exist at the port itself. Since the boarding of the ship would occur in a terminal on US soil I assume they have to follow US laws. If that wasn’t true and they were only required to follow the laws of the flag that they fly they could start sailing now as cruising is allowed in the Bahamas already.

Especially since the lines are using US ports for embarkation/debarkation and transporting American citizens. They already had to go above and beyond health protocols of their flag nation in order to pass CDC inspection long prior to COVID.

 

[DisneyCane]

Not to be a downer, but WDW did open Disney Springs with a mask rule about a month before the Orange County mask mandate was put in place so there is no guarantee that when it’s lifted Disney will relax their mask rule. It does at least open the door for Disney to entertain the possibility though. They need a mask rule as long as the county requires it. I do think if this becomes the norm most places and mask rules start to be removed after vaccinations hit a critical tipping point it will push Disney in that direction. Probably even more important will be how cases and vaccinations go in CA. If the situation in CA continues to be good and even gets better that‘s more of a reason for Disney to relax the mask rules on both coasts.

I’m not sure if 50% is a good number or not but at some point all state and local governments will have to take a hard look at the rules and come up with a metric to relax them. The CDC will also need to adjust. At some point the guidelines for the CDC need to change and say “if you are vaccinated we no longer recommend that you wear a mask in public”. Then state and local governments have to decide how many need to be vaccinated or how low community spread gets to pull the trigger.

Don't forget when Disney reopened they had to have a plan approved by Desantis. Contrary to popular myth, he did order various mitigation measures in the early days. Masks were part of the plan (as well as Universal's). The county mandates came later.

It's quite possible that Disney removes the requirement when I Orange County does. I'd imagine it will be a business decision with some lawyer input.

 

[DisneyCane]

Any teenager getting Pfizer supposedly gets 100% effectiveness against covid. I wish I was still a teenager.

It's for all intents and purposes 100% against severe illness regardless of age so no need to go back in time. If course there are many other reasons to wish you were still a teenager!

 

[monothingie]

That’s pretty interesting. I wonder how the CDC responds. If they give the green light for this plan for Norwegian it sets a precedent that all other cruise lines can follow. It also sets up a head to head conflict with the Governor of FL. Will he attempt to prohibit this plan? That would be a direct attempt to stifle a business on life support. Quite the pickle

Florida senators push to restart cruises in the US, as some lines plan to base ships offshore

As cruise lines consider basing their ships in more cooperative countries, Florida's legislators want the CDC to let the industry restarted there.

www.usatoday.com

Jurisdiction over ports is funky. And even funkier as to cruise ships — remember, almost none of them sail under an American flag. DCL cruises sail under the Bahamian flag.

I’d say DeSantis has no say as to cruise operations.

Just like with airlines and airports, cruise ship operators and ports are subject to federal jurisdiction. Even if the operators were based in Florida, his EO wouldn’t apply.

 

[monothingie]

Epcot Forever, I heard.

Nice and easy to spread everyone out. Too bad the MK show was designed to only be viewable from the hub.

 

[havoc315]

I know the flag the ship sails under applies to a lot of the employment laws and financial issues. My understanding was that while in port the cruise ship is obligated to follow the national and local laws that exist at the port itself. Since the boarding of the ship would occur in a terminal on US soil I assume they have to follow US laws. If that wasn’t true and they were only required to follow the laws of the flag that they fly they could start sailing now as cruising is allowed in the Bahamas already.

Correct... but the port itself doesn’t fall neatly into Florida jurisdiction.
and once they sail into international waters, only international maritime law applies.

So if they can require vaccination once they are a few miles out... how can they be stopped from checking vaccination as people board?

any way, Port Canaveral is actually regulated by a semi independent body, the Canaveral Port Authority.

 

[havoc315]

Just like with airlines and airports, cruise ship operators and ports are subject to federal jurisdiction. Even if the operators were based in Florida, his EO wouldn’t apply.

Ports are more murky than airports.

But yes... he would have trouble applying his EO to ports.

 

[monothingie]

Ports are more murky than airports.

But yes... he would have trouble applying his EO to ports.

Ports are not really a driver here. It’s the Cruise lines whose operations in the US are federally regulated if they dock in the US.

 

[seascape]

The country had a slight increase in cases so is now at 19.52 cases per 100,000. Florida stayed at 25. Michigan is at 67, NJ at 48 and NY is out of the 40's and down to 39. On the good side 12 states are in single digits and 3 including Texas are at 10.

60's 1 state
50's. 0 states
40's 1 state
30's. 7 states
20's. 11 states
10's. 19 states
1's. 12 states

31 states are lower than the national average of 19.52. The top 9 states have 41.1% of the country's new cases. In otherwords the other 41 states and the DC have 58.9% of the country's cases.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

The country had a slight increase in cases so is now at 19.52 cases per 100,000. Florida stayed at 25. Michigan is at 67, NJ at 48 and NY is out of the 40's and down to 39. On the good side 12 states are in single digits and 3 including Texas are at 10.

60's 1 state
50's. 0 states
40's 1 state
30's. 7 states
20's. 11 states
10's. 19 states
1's. 12 states

31 states are lower than the national average of 19.52. The top 9 states have 41.1% of the country's new cases. In otherwords the other 41 states and the DC have 58.9% of the country's cases.

Wait Texas is doing well? How can that be? They no longer mandate the magic muzzle...er..."protective face covering."

 

[ABQ]

Everyone needs to recalibrate and *stop caring about cases.* It doesn't matter if it's cumulative or current trends, cases by themselves are statistically irrelevant at this point, because we took an age-and-risk-targeted approach to vaccinations. It's much more important WHO is getting sick. Statistically, you'd rather see 100 cases in a high school than 2 cases in a nursing home, and all of the people in the nursing homes are vaxxed.

Focus on hospitalizations. If you insist on looking at cases, you need to use some kind of age-adjusted metric.

I agree, though in Michigan, the higher case counts are certainly resulting in increased hospitalizations as well.

Data source https://beta.healthdata.gov/dataset/COVID-19-Reported-Patient-Impact-and-Hospital-Capa/6xf2-c3ie

FLorida, on the other hand, and this could be a direct result of vaccination focus

Though I'm sure someone will just say it's a result of how FL reports their data to the feds.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Wait Texas is doing well? How can that be? They no longer mandate the magic muzzle...er..."protective face covering."

Must you? This isn’t one of those threads.