In summary you won't be visiting WDW anytime soon. Orange County is orange and has a not that spectacular vaccination rate. At least when I was there last week almost nobody was wearing a mask, vaccinated or not (can only assume the latter).
I'm not sure what the thresholds for the CDC community transmission color code actually is. A few weeks ago CA as a State was considered low and then it changed to moderate when the daily case rate dropped a little bit.
That's correct. Not because of the picture today, although it backs up my decision for now, which could still be wrong by vacation time. But, because I wasn't confident the picture would improve before our vacation back when I had to make the decision to gamble that it would or plan an alternative while alternatives were still available. Plus the cost vs value implications of what the picture will look like. I recognize for others this math may be very different. Either with sunk costs that will be lost, or with vaccination status of travelers. If I didn't have kids under 12, or I was going to lose a ton of DVC points, I would look at this differently too. For many here, this math is different, and that's fine. We didn't cancel, just rescheduled for June 2022. By then, we'll all be vaccinated and those maps will not matter. It'll just be the value to dollar question. I assume it'll be back in line by then too.
The state of Florida, and Orange County could still make my decision look incorrect. Arms out, vaccination rates up, take some actions to drive down community spread while increasing vaccinated percentages, turn that entire picture around. There's no reason that FL couldn't look like the North East in those pictures. It's a choice by the herd in FL.
There was a news report about vaccination rates in our county for 12-15 year old after the first week. Over 25% of them got first doses that first week. I remember, but cannot find now, another story about over 50% of them getting first doses before there was even enough time for any to get second doses. I haven't been able to find stats for that number, so hadn't posted about it. The 0-18 stat doesn't help here. Anecdotally, my older kid's friends are all fully vaccinated now. There were some hold outs the first week, but once they heard all the cool things the vaccinated group was planning once they were complete, all of them got the shot too, even those whose parents hadn't. FOMO has a strong pull. We're at 60% of population fully vaccinated, so the 12-15 age may just reflect the overall rate. What it does show though, is that population vaccination rate is a choice.
With someone who cannot be vaccinated for whatever reason, choosing to go places where there's a high vaccination rate seems like a no brainer. Today, that's kids 12 and under, and people with medical issues. Eventually, it'll probably be kids under 5, and hopefully lower. Or, we'll drive transmission down enough everywhere that under 5 doesn't matter anymore, which would be nice. Until then, if a business targets kids 12 and under, getting the vaccination rate as high as possible is just good business planning.
Don't international tourists look at this when they pick which countries to visit? It's hardly a new concept.
