Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[DisneyFan32]

MSN

www.msn.com

A day after announcing New Jersey has recorded its first case of the omicron COVID-19 variant, Gov. Phil Murphy told NJ Advance Media on Saturday that many more cases are likely to hit the state.

Murphy also stressed that “early evidence” suggests the variant is more transmissible but tends to come with moderate symptoms — though he called on residents to remain “vigilant” by taking health precautions.

“As we were saying for the past week, we just assumed it was in our state,” the governor said during a short interview after an unrelated event in Carteret. “My gut tells me this is the first of many to come.”

Though Murphy said “the science is incomplete” on the variant, the “early sense” is that it’s “much more transmissible, including to folks that have already been infected.”

“But again, I almost don’t want to say this, but please God it’s true, early evidence is the impacts are mild,” Murphy said. “I know the one case in New Jersey is mild symptoms.

“But that is incomplete,” he added. “So folks need to be vigilant, wearing the masks, getting vaccinated, getting boosted. Because so far at least, there’s no evidence that lineup is not working.”

The state’s first case was discovered in an adult Georgia woman who traveled to New Jersey recently after traveling to South Africa, officials said. Her identity not been revealed.

The woman, who is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, tested positive Nov. 28, has been in isolation since, and has experienced moderate symptoms, officials said. She is receiving care in the emergency department of an unidentified North Jersey hospital, they said.

Asked Saturday where her case was identified, where she is recovering in the state, and whether she was taking a trip to New Jersey, Murphy said: “I don’t have the details.”

“She was in South Africa and she is somehow in New Jersey,” he said.

Murphy said it took “some time” for the results of the test on the woman to come back because testing the variant is “more complicated to sequence.”

RELATED: N.J. has its first omicron case. Here’s what we know as the COVID variant arrives.

This comes as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the rise again in New Jersey as the state continues to deal with the delta variant of the virus.

The state on Saturday reported another 18 deaths and 3,634 cases. The state’s seven-day average for new positive tests increased to 2,779, up 55% from a week ago and more than double the average (up 161%) from a month ago. That’s also the highest average since April 22. By comparison, however, the seven-day average was 4,367 on Dec. 4, 2020, when vaccinations were not yet available.

There were 1,118 patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases across New Jersey’s 71 hospitals as of Thursday night. It was the fifth straight day the state reported more than 1,000 hospitalizations.

Officials said they expected cases to keep rising with colder weather and holiday events.

Murphy said Tuesday there are no immediate plans for more lockdowns or other restrictions in New Jersey amid concerns over omicron. But the governor stressed things could change as the nation learns more about the variant.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter| Homepage

Omicron is the latest strain of COVID-19 to spread across the globe. The World Health Organization designated omicron a “variant of concern,” saying it poses a “very high” global risk.

President Joe Biden this week called omicron “a cause for concern, not a cause for panic” as he laid out the steps the country is taking to combat the variant.

It was first identified in South Africa and has since spread to more than 20 countries, in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.

The United States’ first case was found this week in California. Locally, multiple cases have been identified in New York City, and Pennsylvania reported its first case Friday, in Philadelphia. The variant has also been found in Colorado, Hawaii, and Minnesota.

It is also unclear so far how well vaccines work against the variant. Moderna said this week it could have a booster shot to target omicron ready for approval by March 2022.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday it expects the vaccines will “continue to offer protection against hospitalization and death” even against omicron, though the mutations in the variant will likely result in “significant reductions” in the ability of some antibodies from the vaccines or a prior coronavirus infection to battle the variant.

The CDC announced this week that every American adult should receive a vaccine booster shot if eligible because of the strain’s threat.

 

[Lilofan]

Good thing we implemented laughable travel restrictions

Get the anti vax / conspiracy theorists to get shots and all that can get vaccinated and boostered and perhaps travel restrictions may not be at the forefront.

 

[hopemax]

Beginning reports from Europe are promising

Explainer: Could the Omicron variant bring milder illness?

The Omicron variant, spreading now in southern Africa and detected in over 30 other countries, has prompted fears it could significantly undermine the effectiveness of vaccines against COVID-19.

www.reuters.com

" In addition, most cases detected in Europe so far have been in younger people who were fully vaccinated, making them less likely to suffer severe illness."

"Some evidence from South Africa suggests that it may actually cause more mild illness but … I caution you that a lot of the patients South Africa initially were among young university students,"

With these caveats, I'm not sure how we can decide what is happening. Within these cohorts, the result has typically led to mild illness through the entirety of Covid. All this really confirms is that this is still true. What will hamstring us again is what happens with older, less healthy, less immune and because they heard "it might be more mild"... less cautious population.



Just a few weeks ago people were going on and on about messaging and the importance of projecting uncertainty. Say "We don't know" if something is unknown. Now, we have a huge list of unknowns and people are running with a best case scenario. The first of something doesn't mean the rest will play out that way. It's like there's a shuffled a deck of cards and the first 10 cards flipped were low number cards, and people concluding there are no face cards in the deck. Meanwhile, the card counters are eyeing the table because the table is looking favorable. We were very lucky to catch the development of a variant as early as we did. We have to keep our frame of reference in that context; it's early. Ask various sports teams about counting chickens.

Christmas is 3 weeks away. The timing of this is awful. It will be worse if people have expectations that aren't valid. I'm sure most of you want me to just shut up. I would just rather we don't have to spend January and February reading stories about friends, coworkers and family members who ended up in the hospital like my FIL. If it is more mild, great! There will be plenty of time to celebrate in the future. If it's not, I really hope people have been mindful and won't be resistant to any suggestions about behavior because they had gotten their hopes up.

 

[Nubs70]

" In addition, most cases detected in Europe so far have been in younger people who were fully vaccinated, making them less likely to suffer severe illness."

"Some evidence from South Africa suggests that it may actually cause more mild illness but … I caution you that a lot of the patients South Africa initially were among young university students,"

With these caveats, I'm not sure how we can decide what is happening. Within these cohorts, the result has typically led to mild illness through the entirety of Covid. All this really confirms is that this is still true. What will hamstring us again is what happens with older, less healthy, less immune and because they heard "it might be more mild"... less cautious population.



Just a few weeks ago people were going on and on about messaging and the importance of projecting uncertainty. Say "We don't know" if something is unknown. Now, we have a huge list of unknowns and people are running with a best case scenario. The first of something doesn't mean the rest will play out that way. It's like there's a shuffled a deck of cards and the first 10 cards flipped were low number cards, and people concluding there are no face cards in the deck. Meanwhile, the card counters are eyeing the table because the table is looking favorable. We were very lucky to catch the development of a variant as early as we did. We have to keep our frame of reference in that context; it's early. Ask various sports teams about counting chickens.

Christmas is 3 weeks away. The timing of this is awful. It will be worse if people have expectations that aren't valid. I'm sure most of you want me to just shut up. I would just rather we don't have to spend January and February reading stories about friends, coworkers and family members who ended up in the hospital like my FIL. If it is more mild, great! There will be plenty of time to celebrate in the future. If it's not, I really hope people have been mindful and won't be resistant to any suggestions about behavior because they had gotten their hopes up.

So the vaccine is safe but might be effective (against hospitalization and death but not transmission)?

 

[Andrew C]

Christmas is 3 weeks away. The timing of this is awful.

Not awful if you’re vaccinated. Same calculus as before.

 

[hopemax]

Not awful if you’re vaccinated. Same calculus as before.

No it’s not. The shear number of people that will be battling infections at the same time is going to be much higher than in previous waves. So that means all the domino-effect percentages multiplied out into raw totals will be higher than we’ve seen before. 1% of 1000 is way better than 1% of 10,000 which is way better than 1% of 100,000.

Yes, your individual risk of a bad outcome is much reduced with vaccination. But the problem won’t be on the “individual risk” side but on the community side. Lack of available healthcare. So if you end up in the small percentage that needs help and not the larger percentage of people that can recover at home just fine, you are going to have a much harder time getting it. And that will affect individual outcomes.

You can still lose a hand of blackjack if you are dealt a 19 or 20. Vaccination might give us that level kind of odds, but some people will be losers all the same. Especially, if there are “hundreds of thousands” of hands being played instead of just “thousands” or “hundreds.”

 

[Bob Harlem]

Christmas is 3 weeks away. The timing of this is awful. It will be worse if people have expectations that aren't valid. I'm sure most of you want me to just shut up. I would just rather we don't have to spend January and February reading stories about friends, coworkers and family members who ended up in the hospital like my FIL. If it is more mild, great! There will be plenty of time to celebrate in the future. If it's not, I really hope people have been mindful and won't be resistant to any suggestions about behavior because they had gotten their hopes up.

It is mild though with the two most obvious symptoms missing in it, O2 saturation (which lowers chances for "long covid") and taste and smell loss and reports of that missing are growing. People act like there is no cost associated with overreacting, at some point you have to stop the bed wetting and let go. However until that happens Delta still exists, and the Northeast is heading toward Florida summer levels of problems, expecting Canada won't get a Delta wave is not realistic either.

 

[Nubs70]

It is mild though with the two most obvious symptoms, O2 saturation (which lowers chances for "long covid") and taste and smell loss and reports of that are growing. People act like there is no cost associated with overreacting, at some point you have to stop the bed wetting and let go. However until that happens Delta still exists, and the Northeast is heading toward Florida summer levels of problems.

With the taste.and smell observation, omicron has lost it's ability to cross blood/brain barrier?

 

[Andrew C]

No it’s not. The shear number of people that will be battling infections at the same time is going to be much higher than in previous waves. So that means all the domino-effect percentages multiplied out into raw totals will be higher than we’ve seen before. 1% of 1000 is way better than 1% of 10,000 which is way better than 1% of 100,000.

Yes, your individual risk of a bad outcome is much reduced with vaccination. But the problem won’t be on the “individual risk” side but on the community side. Lack of available healthcare. So if you end up in the small percentage that needs help and not the larger percentage of people that can recover at home just fine, you are going to have a much harder time getting it. And that will effect individual outcomes.

You can still lose a hand of blackjack if you are dealt a 19 or 20. Vaccination might give us that level kind of odds, but some people will be losers all the same. Especially, if there are “hundreds of thousands” of hands being played instead of just “thousands” or “hundreds.”

Again. Doesn’t change my calculus as vaccinated person. What do you want me to do? Hide in a basement until another vaccine is developed for it, only to watch millions of people not take it again? Pass.
Being alarmist about this variant isn’t going to prevent me from going to Canada this Christmas to visit family.
If governors and state legislators want to mandate vaccines in order to avoid the worst case scenario you’re referring to, that’s on them.
Status quo for me, and health care providers can prep for worst case I guess if they buy into what you’re selling.

 

[The Mom]

It's concerning that the woman in NJ felt sick enough to go to the ER. I don't know if this is a sign of severity, or if people are going to ERs in an abundance of caution if having any Covid like symptoms. Five years ago would people with the same symptoms stayed home, stayed in bed, drank lots of fluids, and taken Tylenol for fever?

I have never had the flu, so have never felt sick enough to go to an ER for anything other than an injury. So I don't know how bad I would have to feel to do so.

 

[correcaminos]

" In addition, most cases detected in Europe so far have been in younger people who were fully vaccinated, making them less likely to suffer severe illness."

"Some evidence from South Africa suggests that it may actually cause more mild illness but … I caution you that a lot of the patients South Africa initially were among young university students,"

With these caveats, I'm not sure how we can decide what is happening. Within these cohorts, the result has typically led to mild illness through the entirety of Covid. All this really confirms is that this is still true. What will hamstring us again is what happens with older, less healthy, less immune and because they heard "it might be more mild"... less cautious population.



Just a few weeks ago people were going on and on about messaging and the importance of projecting uncertainty. Say "We don't know" if something is unknown. Now, we have a huge list of unknowns and people are running with a best case scenario. The first of something doesn't mean the rest will play out that way. It's like there's a shuffled a deck of cards and the first 10 cards flipped were low number cards, and people concluding there are no face cards in the deck. Meanwhile, the card counters are eyeing the table because the table is looking favorable. We were very lucky to catch the development of a variant as early as we did. We have to keep our frame of reference in that context; it's early. Ask various sports teams about counting chickens.

Christmas is 3 weeks away. The timing of this is awful. It will be worse if people have expectations that aren't valid. I'm sure most of you want me to just shut up. I would just rather we don't have to spend January and February reading stories about friends, coworkers and family members who ended up in the hospital like my FIL. If it is more mild, great! There will be plenty of time to celebrate in the future. If it's not, I really hope people have been mindful and won't be resistant to any suggestions about behavior because they had gotten their hopes up.

I prefer to remain positive and that there is a reason why we are seeing it mostly in younger (likely unvaccinated). There is no reason to jump to negative at this point.

WHO said vaccines, not travel, are the key for this holiday season in an article I posted a few days ago. Vaccinate is what we need to push. Not just worry and wait for sky to fall again which it might not.

In the article I posted, it is acknowledged that mutations of this magnitude often take out the fight so to speak from the virus. Massive mutations make it hard to be a severe disease.

Only mid October is a wrong way of looking. 2 months is longer than people want to admit when they choose to be negative with the virus.

It's concerning that the woman in NJ felt sick enough to go to the ER. I don't know if this is a sign of severity, or if people are going to ERs in an abundance of caution if having any Covid like symptoms. Five years ago would people with the same symptoms stayed home, stayed in bed, drank lots of fluids, and taken Tylenol for fever?

I have never had the flu, so have never felt sick enough to go to an ER for anything other than an injury. So I don't know how bad I would have to feel to do so.

Not completely concerning to me. People often use the ER when they don't need to. Especially those without access to good clinics. They have not hinted her case was severe at all in the articles I read. In fact since it sounds like she's not local, it makes sense

 

[hopemax]

I prefer to remain positive and that there is a reason why we are seeing it mostly in younger (likely unvaccinated). There is no reason to jump to negative at this point.

WHO said vaccines, not travel, are the key for this holiday season in an article I posted a few days ago. Vaccinate is what we need to push. Not just worry and wait for sky to fall again which it might not.

In the article I posted, it is acknowledged that mutations of this magnitude often take out the fight so to speak from the virus. Massive mutations make it hard to be a severe disease.

Only mid October is a wrong way of looking. 2 months is longer than people want to admit when they choose to be negative with the virus.

Not completely concerning to me. People often use the ER when they don't need to. Especially those without access to good clinics. They have not hinted her case was severe at all in the articles I read.

The “remain in place” option is to presume Omicron is a similar severity to wild, alpha or delta. It is not “jumping to a negative.” The people who are jumping to conclusions are the ones who have decided the severity is different than before. A change has happened. You are “jumping to a positive”. Not just being positive.

 

[correcaminos]

The “remain in place” option is to presume Omicron is a similar severity to wild, alpha or delta. It is not “jumping to a negative.” The people who are jumping to conclusions are the ones who have decided the severity is different than before. A change has happened. You are “jumping to a positive”. Not just being positive.

What good does yours do? Honestly what? WHO says vaccinated to decrease spread.

My so called jump to positive? Please understand I am looking at data from countries, not jumping. Until proven otherwise I follow what we have. To jump to negative is actually ignoring what we have so far.

 

[hopemax]

Again. Doesn’t change my calculus as vaccinated person. What do you want me to do? Hide in a basement until another vaccine is developed for it, only to watch millions of people not take it again? Pass.
Being alarmist about this variant isn’t going to prevent me from going to Canada this Christmas to visit family.
If governors and state legislators want to mandate vaccines in order to avoid the worst case scenario you’re referring to, that’s on them.
Status quo for me, and health care providers can prep for worst case I guess if they buy into what you’re selling.

Well for your sake, I hope the numbers don’t escalate fast enough that the Canadian government doesn’t have to start worrying about preserving care for Canadians. So they don’t have to be the villain and close the border to visitors again before Christmas. Again shear numbers are going to tell the story. The timing will probably work out in your favor but possibilities exist, just like a snowstorm timing out to disrupt holiday travel can.

 

[Andrew C]

Well for your sake, I hope the numbers don’t escalate fast enough that the Canadian government doesn’t have to start worrying about preserving care for Canadians. So they don’t have to be the villain and close the border to visitors again before Christmas. Again shear numbers are going to tell the story. The timing will probably work out in your favor but possibilities exist, just like a snowstorm timing out to disrupt holiday travel can.

Delta is already nailing the northern states right now. We actually know this variant is severe. Yet the borders remain open for now.

 

[hopemax]

Delta is already nailing the northern states right now. We actually know this is actually severe. Yet the borders remain open for now.

Doesn’t that only prove Canada has confidence they can handle the current level of need? And they are, right?

But is it proof that under different conditions, such as a fast escalation in projected load, wouldn’t lead to a different outcome?

Like I said, the timing will probably work out to get Christmas in, before the bad arrives. But this is a real numbers game heading our way. And with less healthcare labor. So past performance may not be the best indicator of future results.

 

[dreday3]

It's concerning that the woman in NJ felt sick enough to go to the ER. I don't know if this is a sign of severity, or if people are going to ERs in an abundance of caution if having any Covid like symptoms. Five years ago would people with the same symptoms stayed home, stayed in bed, drank lots of fluids, and taken Tylenol for fever?

I have never had the flu, so have never felt sick enough to go to an ER for anything other than an injury. So I don't know how bad I would have to feel to do so.

Completely anecdotal, but this month after our trip I went to doctor when I never would have gone before out of concern I might have Covid (I didn't). Our ER is filled with people who are worried the cold/fever/whatever they have might be Covid, so they are showing up even without severe symptoms because they can't get appointments at offices until days later.

I think people are nervous. With good reason obviously.

 

[Andrew C]

Doesn’t that only prove Canada has confidence they can handle the current level of need? And they are, right?

They may handle with strict mitigation and lockdowns as they have down throughout the pandemic. And their higher vaccine rate probably helps as well. But their health care/hospital system can’t handle the same load as ours.

I really don’t understand what you’re arguing for us to do? Vaccine mandates for all? Lockdowns?

 

[donaldtoo]

This whole thing is just getting so hard to figure out.
Both DWifey and myself are double vaccinated and boosted as of Friday afternoon. We got our second dose at the end of March, so we were more than 2 months beyond the 6 before we got boosted.
DWifey has been at work in an office the whole time.
My firm had us working from home for about 6 weeks early on, but, productivity was down substantially enough that they brought us back to the office under strict protocols. Mandatory masks, traffic patterns, break room usage, etc.
At least 3 young people had it in my office earlier, none recently. The first coworker was in the office with it, and his cube was near my office.
The firm spent 10K havin’ the office deep cleaned because of that.
The second had it after she went to a wedding one weekend. She never came back to the office with it, as she felt symptoms before the weekend was over, and tested positive.
Not sure how the other dude got it, but, he was the last one, so far, and that was several months ago. Again, all people in their 20’s.
There were 3 people in DWifeys office that also had it.
How DWifey and I haven’t had it, I have no clue. With breakthrough cases, Delta, Omicron, etc.
Unless, somehow, we have natural immunity. That does exist.
I got a flu shot with my CoCo booster in my other arm. Before last year, I hadn’t had a flu shot in over 15 years, and never got sick with it, and have generally been healthy in that regard all my life.
I’m all for keeping myself and my family healthy with whatever it takes, as I cherish all of them, but, all this doom and gloom seems to be gettin’ outta’ hand.
I know of only one family member that has had COVID, and that was over a year ago. A nephew attending Texas A&M got it at school.
My folks are 82 and 88, and my MIL is 85, and they’ve all weathered this thing without issue, so far.
I just don’t get it at this point…is it just a roll of the dice…?!
We’ve been to several family gatherings recently, and 8 of us were in an SUV just last night to tour our local Trail of Lights, including our 2 young granddaughters (ages 3+ and 5-ish mos.). We have been around them a lot lately, but, we missed a lot of irreplaceable time with our oldest granddaughter last year.
I try to keep up with it all as reasonably possible, but, sometimes it’s just gets freakin’ confusing with all the opinions, “science”, and “facts” flying all around…seems like the folks in charge are just as confused as the rest of us, but, they’ll never admit it….

 

[networkpro]

I've read 4K workers were involved 24/7 to build the hospital in China in a record 6 days.

We also don't know of the quality and suitability of it at completion. Lots of Communist China construction is tofu-dreg that is not durable, is composed of substandard materials and tends to prematurely decay or collapse. Smoke and mirrors show project.