Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[ImperfectPixie]

I agree. The fastest way to a return to normal is get as many people as possible vaccinated as fast as possible. I would have no issue with a vaccine passport personally, I just know it won’t happen in the US. The minority who won’t get the vaccine will delay our return to normal, but hopefully they are a small enough number that it’s only a short delay

The problem is that those who won't get vaccinated may be in the minority, but it's a high percentage minority...which will equal a long delay.

It's the same with masks and distancing. If everyone had been doing what they should since the get-go, we wouldn't still be here a year into the pandemic.

 

[DisneyCane]

But your math implies that the rate of spread continues as it is now, even with more and more people being vaccinated? So though I agree with you, the 2 months is not enough to assume the 74 deaths won't grow, but there will be fewer unvaccinated people out there spreading around the virus over the next 6, 8 and 10 months. So the deaths per millions of vaccinated will not be a linear growth rate.

Also, The early vaccinated were mostly elderly and that's the age group with the majority of breakthrough cases that are documented so far. As more young people are fully vaccinated, the breakthrough case mortality rate will drop which will make the growth rate even less linear. I'm sure @havoc315 will disagree in some way.

 

[DisneyCane]

What about if insurance companies set a deadline when vaccinations are beyond plentiful, likely coming pretty soon at the rate we're going even without J&J, where if you are not vaccinated, you won't be denied treatment, but insurance will not cover the cost of your treatment? If I build a fire in the middle of my living room sans fireplace, the insurance company will not cover the rebuild of my house when I could have simply turned on the heat.

I'm sure something in the thousands of pages of the affordable care act would prohibit them from doing that. Not that I disagree with the concept but congress would most likely need to amend the act to make it legal.

 

[LaughingGravy]

Small issue - there are a small population who would have contradictions. Not fair to me if they get it and are not covered through no fault of their own. It is a tiny population but still..


I'm good with other positive dangling of carrots though.

Of course, barring documented and warranted circumstances.
I know a guy who says he was traumatized by an injection when he was 8 and saw someone get the vaccine and he freaked out at the size of the needle length being 1.5" for someone with a fat arm. Guy is a diabetic and routinely sticks himself as it is for tests as well as injections of insulin, but that's the reason he's not being vaccinated? Umm...pull up your big boy pants and get the vaccination.

 

[mmascari]

With multiple vaccines and 15 months of data, it simply is unacceptable for the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to continue to dodge the question with ambiguous responses such as "this will end, for sure, when we get the level of infection very low."

My concern is that Dr. Fauci wants a number much lower than any of the numbers I have outlined above, and is afraid to say it. If he has a number in mind, he should be prepared to defend it with science. If he does not have a number in mind, then what the heck is he doing?

Those were all good numbers that I trimmed off the quote. I think there's a good policy value decision in there.

I disagree that the "director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases" should give us the number that's back to normal. This is an unelected official. I count on this role to tell us how to get the current numbers to go down. To tell us if making decision X will cause the number to go up or down. But, I don't want them making the decision on how low is low enough. Lower then today is a relatively safe answer. I think most people can agree that "low" is a good target.

I was disappointed in his answers. To me, when any politician asks the question of the unelected advisor "How low is low enough", the answer should be "What level of community spread, cases, deaths, and long term health impacts is acceptable to you? I can provide guidance on how we can get to that level of impact.".

The entire premise of the question is wrong. If a politician is looking to a bureaucrat to set the policy, why did we elect them to begin with. Isn't that the politician's job?

In a WDW example, I'm sure the first aid team can make park change recommendations based on cases they see. Lots of bumps and bruises form X, they'll recommend changes to X to eliminate them. But, actually making the change isn't the first aid team's decision. Someone else owns the management decision on if the level of cases is acceptable or requires action. Otherwise, all the tripping hazards on main street would be removed and the road surface replaced with something softer to eliminate any chance of scraped knees. That it's not means someone made a management decision that the current rate of scraped knees on main street is an acceptable trade off.

 

[GhostHost1000]

So, is 40,000 yearly deaths your number then? That's about the automobile yearly number. That's fine. Own a number, bigger, smaller, at 40K, whatever. Just pick a value that you're willing to call "normal". The "we'll never never know, we have to get back, we can't just wait" is a huge dodge. Just own a value you think is normal. Otherwise, the assumption is that you want normal NOW, and yesterday's numbers were 700+ daily deaths, 250,000+ yearly. If you're not going to share your policy position explicitly, that's the value you seem to be implicitly telling us.


It's not a scientific question. It's a policy one. I watched the Fauci/Jordan exchange. I was extremely disappointed that Fauci didn't ask Jordan what level he felt was acceptable. Defining acceptable yearly impacts is a policy question, not a scientific one. We elect politicians to make policy decisions. They get advice and guidance from the unelected science people then use it to understand those policy impacts and on what things will impact the metrics. But, at the end of the day, the decision about the level of community spread going around that we determine is "acceptable" isn't a science one, it's all policy. Between Fauci and Jordan, Fauci should be advising on impacts of different levels and ways actions will drive the levels up or down. But, it's Jordan that should be deciding on what level is acceptable. The exchange came off sounding like Jordan wanted normal today and that today's numbers were just fine to him. I don't know if that's what he really meant, and I wish Fauci had asked him that question in respsone.

I thought they all come across stupid in that video but fauci didn’t ever really have an answer either. My thoughts are there is always gonna be a threat. People may always be dying from it (and other things), so when is life normal again because we have 2 polar sides it seems and unfortunately some of it STILL runs political rather than common sense.

 

[LaughingGravy]

Jordan's "mask wearing" drove me nuts, just sayin'.

 

[mmascari]

My thoughts are there is always gonna be a threat. People may always be dying from it (and other things), so when is life normal again because we have 2 polar sides it seems and unfortunately some of it STILL runs political rather than common sense.

And what's the level you're willing to call normal?

Several posters have replied with numbers between 100,000 and 30,000 yearly deaths, roughly 270 to 100 daily deaths. Still a far drop from where we are today even for the larger value.

That's that answer to the question. We're back to normal when we're down to level we collectively decide is low enough. Pick number or we'll all just assume 250,000, 700 daily IS your normal. We're there. It's normal today.

 

[correcaminos]

Of course, barring documented and warranted circumstances.
I know a guy who says he was traumatized by an injection when he was 8 and saw someone get the vaccine and he freaked out at the size of the needle length being 1.5" for someone with a fat arm. Guy is a diabetic and routinely sticks himself as it is for tests as well as injections of insulin, but that's the reason he's not being vaccinated? Umm...pull up your big boy pants and get the vaccination.

Oh wow, yeah no. Grow up. The needle was smaller than most I've seen. Now if you have a legit trauma, I get it. I have one for childhood myself and I signed up to do multiple sticks and jabs. I'd gladly literally hold someone's hand that needs it.

I'm a bit touchy on mandating and removing healthcare through no fault. Like I had an extremely difficult delivery where my body was shutting down on me (google class 1 or severe HELLP). Afterwards the insurance refused to cover any pregnancy if I had one single risk factor. So my child remains the only child that made it full term. My bills were just too much for us to run the risk. Kicker was insurance refused to cover BCP too

So again touchy on that knowing how sucky insurance was.

I'm sure something in the thousands of pages of the affordable care act would prohibit them from doing that. Not that I disagree with the concept but congress would most likely need to amend the act to make it legal.

Pretty sure it would be. Now using the story above I eventually was covered, but by that time I didn't want to do an AMA pregnancy.

 

[Heppenheimer]

Those were all good numbers that I trimmed off the quote. I think there's a good policy value decision in there.

I disagree that the "director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases" should give us the number that's back to normal. This is an unelected official. I count on this role to tell us how to get the current numbers to go down. To tell us if making decision X will cause the number to go up or down. But, I don't want them making the decision on how low is low enough. Lower then today is a relatively safe answer. I think most people can agree that "low" is a good target.

I was disappointed in his answers. To me, when any politician asks the question of the unelected advisor "How low is low enough", the answer should be "What level of community spread, cases, deaths, and long term health impacts is acceptable to you? I can provide guidance on how we can get to that level of impact.".

The entire premise of the question is wrong. If a politician is looking to a bureaucrat to set the policy, why did we elect them to begin with. Isn't that the politician's job?

In a WDW example, I'm sure the first aid team can make park change recommendations based on cases they see. Lots of bumps and bruises form X, they'll recommend changes to X to eliminate them. But, actually making the change isn't the first aid team's decision. Someone else owns the management decision on if the level of cases is acceptable or requires action. Otherwise, all the tripping hazards on main street would be removed and the road surface replaced with something softer to eliminate any chance of scraped knees. That it's not means someone made a management decision that the current rate of scraped knees on main street is an acceptable trade off.

Let's face it, that representative didn't particularly want an answer, especially one that would likely involve moving targets and quite a bit of nuance. He wanted to rant.

 

[Patcheslee]

I'm sure something in the thousands of pages of the affordable care act would prohibit them from doing that. Not that I disagree with the concept but congress would most likely need to amend the act to make it legal.

It opens the door to too many other exemptions to coverage though. Smoke and get lung cancer? We won't cover. Refuse all birth control? Pregnancy not covered.

 

[havoc315]

Also, The early vaccinated were mostly elderly and that's the age group with the majority of breakthrough cases that are documented so far. As more young people are fully vaccinated, the breakthrough case mortality rate will drop which will make the growth rate even less linear. I'm sure @havoc315 will disagree in some way.

The breakthrough mortality rate is dependent on way too many factors to over-simplify like that. The breakthrough mortality rate may increase over time, as the protection from vaccination wanes (which is why we may need boosters). And the more variants that emerge, we may see increases in breakthrough rates. (for example, the AZ vaccine was very effective against the Wuhan strain, but the South Africa variant has a very high breakthrough rate).

Wouldn't want to disappoint you. But the facts are -- eradicating Covid is far better than letting it stick around at high levels.
And I note that the people who are saying, "who cares if it sticks around" -- are the same people who 12 months ago were saying, "ti's just the flu.. we shouldn't over-react"

 

[mmascari]

I agree. I think this is the major change in public sentiment that is coming soon. Right now the majority of Americans are not vaccinated and they also support continuing mitigation. As the majority flips from unvaccinated to vaccinated we are going to see less and less people who are accepting of mitigations. There are some people who want to follow what’s in the best interest of everyone and the common good, but most people are also concerned with their own health and the health of their loved ones too. Once the majority of people and the majority of their loved ones are protected people will become anxious to return to normal.

People like to say that we will still need mitigation for a while even after everyone who wants to be vaccinated has gone, but I don’t see public sentiment following that logic. Talk of vaccine resistant variants and return to normal being based on cases and statistics and not how many people are vaccinated may make scientific sense but most people aren’t going to buy it. If we hit July 1 and if 60%+ of the total population and 70%+ of eligible 12+ people are vaccinated we will see public sentiment demand most if not all Covid restrictions are lifted...even if cases don’t go below 10,000 a day or whatever metric is decided. It’s going to be hard for WDW and other businesses to fight that change which is why I think the Summer will look pretty good

It's all a numbers game, just different numbers. I like to think that if the daily death count doesn't get below say 500. Even if people are mostly vaccinated (but clearly not enough yet), that people are still going to be concerned.

That's the entire question. When do we have enough vaccinated, even with hold outs not getting it, that the daily impact is low enough for people to feel comfortable doing things normally. Definitely a sliding scale. But, for every person saying "not going to Disney while masks are required", how many of them would go if masks aren't required and it's still "500 people die every day". I'm guessing most in the first group need the impact lower before they're going.

 

[ParentsOf4]

I mean a friend of mine died after testing positive for covid and having both shots. Covid wasn't the driving force for her death. Her blood cancer was. I really don't understand why people seem to want to keep the bad news at forefront like this should never end.

I hear ya. I believe there were about 2.9 millions deaths in the United States in 2019, or a bit less than 1% of the population.

This means that a bit less than 1% of the people who get vaccinated are probably going to die within the next 12 months.

Some (particularly in the media) seem to find this a difficult concept to grasp.

 

[havoc315]

How about we wait on the report before going all full negative again. All articles said they are awaiting on findings. I mean a friend of mine died after testing positive for covid and having both shots. Covid wasn't the driving force for her death. Her blood cancer was. I really don't understand why people seem to want to keep the bad news at forefront like this should never end. I'm fully vaccinated and I'm getting sick of it really. I want this to end and I don't need zero to go back to normal.

??? Who is going full negative? Only 74 deaths is GREAT news, not negative at all.
And it demonstrates that if we can get cases down to 500 per day instead of 50,000... we could have 0 deaths.

There will be deaths among full vaccinated. There was some false advertising of "100% effective against death" based on small sample sizes. But 99% effective against death? That's not negative. That's very very good news.
We were at 500,000 per deaths over the last year.... a 99% reduction to 5,000 would be FANTASTIC... but we could get it down to 0 or almost 0, just with some common sense.

 

[correcaminos]

I hear ya. I believe there were about 2.9 millions deaths in the United States in 2019, or a bit less than 1% of the population.

This means that a bit less than 1% of the people who get vaccinated are probably going to die within the next 12 months.

Some (particularly in the media) seem to find this a difficult concept to grasp.

I am more concerned about a younger person with no health issues than someone like my friend who was 80s and not healthy. I haven't heard her cause of death yet per the coroner, though it should be infection that caused organ shut down.

And lest people think I'm conspiracy theory crazy, I'm not. Not even close. I don't believe that people added false covid to the death certificates. Just that the older you get, the more likely you will be to die. A positive test, like in the case of my friend, doesn't mean they are ill from that either. She found out by accident for a routine procedure.

 

[correcaminos]

??? Who is going full negative? Only 74 deaths is GREAT news, not negative at all.
And it demonstrates that if we can get cases down to 500 per day instead of 50,000... we could have 0 deaths.

There will be deaths among full vaccinated. There was some false advertising of "100% effective against death" based on small sample sizes. But 99% effective against death? That's not negative. That's very very good news.
We were at 500,000 per deaths over the last year.... a 99% reduction to 5,000 would be FANTASTIC... but we could get it down to 0 or almost 0, just with some common sense.

Sorry I got it wrong. Your post read negative in tone to me. I fully admit I could've read you wrong. I do want to view full true cause of deaths as they likely were older too based on timing.

 

[DisneyCane]

??? Who is going full negative? Only 74 deaths is GREAT news, not negative at all.
And it demonstrates that if we can get cases down to 500 per day instead of 50,000... we could have 0 deaths.

There will be deaths among full vaccinated. There was some false advertising of "100% effective against death" based on small sample sizes. But 99% effective against death? That's not negative. That's very very good news.
We were at 500,000 per deaths over the last year.... a 99% reduction to 5,000 would be FANTASTIC... but we could get it down to 0 or almost 0, just with some common sense.

What you call "common sense," I call unreasonable government overreach. We can get to low numbers with common sense. Zero or almost zero requires either forced vaccinations or continued significant mitigation for months after voluntary vaccinations.

 

[havoc315]

You really think the general public is going to agree to continued mitigations to get from 1,200 deaths a year in vaccinated people down to near zero? How long do the continued mitigations last to get cases down to nearly zero? Months? Into 2022? That’s a tough sell, even for people who are interested in following the science.

No, point is -- that ship has already sailed. We already didn't accept the mitigation levels of the UK and Israel.

How long would be necessary? 4-6 weeks of REAL mitigation, not the semi-compliant mask wearing and slightly reducing dining capacity that we have been having. 4-6 weeks of real mitigation + vaccine passports, we would be under 5,000 cases per day in about 6 weeks, maybe 8 weeks on the outside.
If we did that, we would probably get down to almost 0 deaths per year. (certainly well under 1,000)

 

[havoc315]

Sorry but your post read negative in tone to me. I fully admit I could've read you wrong. I do want to view full true cause of deaths as they likely were older too based on timing.

If anything, the 74 is likely an undercount. But that's ok -- It's still extremely successful.

The "negative" is that those are still avoidable deaths, if we eradicate Covid. If we eradicate Covid, then nobody will die from it.

That's the positive/negative -- are we just going to be happy with Covid reduction, or are we going for Covid eradication?

And as Dr. Gottlieb commented, our country isn't on the trajectory for Covid eradication.