Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[Andrew C]

Where on earth did you get that from what I said? Wasn'teven close to implying that or even thinking it. Just the rural areas in my state have been awfuk with vaccinations. Cities are better but still pretty lousy tbh.

Just saying in the grand scheme of things, it matters very little about what most rural areas are doing. They really don’t have much to do with ending this pandemic or not. That’s where my mind is right now.

 

[LittleBuford]

I hear BJ is ordering lockdowns for Christmas in the UK. I'm sorry if this is incorrect but it is all I get here

No lockdowns have been ordered. I'm not sure where you're seeing reports that they have, but they are wrong.

 

[Nubs70]

No lockdowns have been ordered. I'm not sure where you're seeing reports that they have, but they are wrong.

2 week covid circuit breaker starting 12/27. Rule of 6. Expected announcement 12/26. That's the rumors.

 

[DisneyCane]

Wouldn’t that be nice.

Do an at home test everyday or every other day with breakfast. Paid sick day if it’s positive. Supply of standard quality masks that you know aren’t counterfeit. Some economies of scale and volume to drive the cost down and none to people.

Even with poor vaccines, that could control spread relatively well. Not nearly as durable or cheap as vaccination. With vaccination could make a huge dent.

Couple the test ordering with result reporting, put mask wearing on the morning weather if cases are up or down.

Make the process simple to do online or from a phone or in a library or post office.


Of course, that still imagines that everyone, say 95%, would do it. We would probably still have 30% not bother. This is why we cannot have nice things.

If an accurate, easy to do yourself, test that was cheap and easy to produce billions of per week was able to be created then morning testing would be a way to control spread quite well. Unfortunately I don't think anything is close to being available that checks all of those boxes.

 

[DisneyCane]

We had a similar experience the summer of 2020, we couldn’t visit our dad the last 3 months of his life because his nursing home was (justifiably) locked down due to Covid. Fortunately it wasn’t a surprise (he was in his 80s and had Parkinson’s) so we all talked frequently on the phone but it doesn’t make it any less painful we couldn’t say goodbye in person and he died surrounded by (wonderful) nurses rather than his family.

Covid is devestating but some of the unintended consequences of the safety measures have been equally as devastating.

One unintended consequence with my dad is that my mom delayed (with phone consultation with his doctor) taking him to the hospital for a day because she was so afraid he'd be exposed to COVID in the hospital.

It may not have changed the outcome or likely would have led to him surviving but not being communicative or being able to care for himself if he had lived but the delay made death the only outcome.

 

[Lilofan]

That didn’t help places like Canada as well as many other counties, so what are we doing? Why does the world keep wanting to implement the same failed strategy that his been in place since prior to vaccines that was supposed to buy us time until vaccines became available? With the worldwide vaccine rates, it hasn’t worked. And it won’t work. Why do we expect different results? Do we want to lock down one or twice a year for the next decade or longer.

why do countries like the US and Canada not have a test surplus to prevent shortages? Why do we not have free, quality in home tests readily available? Why aren’t the pills that have been developed by several companies to prevent hospitalization not being fast tracked? They should already be available.
It’s sad how much the world sucks at this. We have been warned since the beginning about mutations, yet the strategy the world continues to have in place just drags out the possibility of further ones. Makes no sense. It’s insane. Time to adjust what is priority.

In regards to your idea of free quality in home test kits readily available it sounds good in theory but , we've got approx ,300 million Americans living here. After 300 million test kits are used as an example next week, then what? If there another 300 million kits available the following week, the week after that, following month etc and who's going to pay for that?

 

[Nubs70]

In regards to your idea of free quality in home test kits readily available it sounds good in theory but , we've got approx ,300 million Americans living here. After 300 million test kits are used as an example next week, then what? If there another 300 million kits available the following week, the week after that, following month etc and who's going to pay for that?

Print the money.

 

[Lilofan]

Print the money.

Monetary sovereignty is not an excuse .

 

[correcaminos]

Just saying in the grand scheme of things, it matters very little about what most rural areas are doing. They really don’t have much to do with ending this pandemic or not. That’s where my mind is right now.

Rural absolutely creeps into more populated areas. As someone who lived in a rural area, we still went to real cities. Lately they've been diverting to other hospitals. Which strains things. They also were part of why we have the national guard deployed. Not to me tion variants can happen anywhere. So while they may be more isolated, they are not an isolated island. Their cases will affect my area which can affect others.

 

[DisneyFan32]

Will Omicron variant wave will gonna end by months soon?

 

[cm1988]

Just counting bodies, COVID-19 has had greater impact on the US than the Civil War, Vietnam (times 15), and 9/11/2001 (times 250). The business world… the stone-cold heart of America… and,thus, 21st-century Disney… counts dollars and votes, not lives.

What YOU count is up to YOU. Have a good day, and don’t patronize any of this until it dies and something good rises from the ashes. That’s how it works. If you don’t shovel money at it, it dies, just like 800,000 people have died. Let it die.

 

[Gringrinngghost]

Will Omicron variant wave will gonna end by months soon?

It’s too early to know how long Omicrons impacts will last.

 

[Lilofan]

Just counting bodies, COVID-19 has had greater impact on the US than the Civil War, Vietnam (times 15), and 9/11/2001 (times 250). The business world… the stone-cold heart of America… and,thus, 21st-century Disney… counts dollars and votes, not lives.

What YOU count is up to YOU. Have a good day, and don’t patronize any of this until it dies and something good rises from the ashes. That’s how it works. If you don’t shovel money at it, it dies, just like 800,000 people have died. Let it die.

That is a blind mindset of some, just let it ( ie them ) die. I've read on average it costs $8B for research and $2B to create a vaccine so money is part of the solution. Do some profit from it ? Yes, the Moderna CEO went from a being a millionaire to being a billionaire when his company stock went through the roof.

 

[hopemax]

None of that will end the pandemic. That is what I’m interested in. The above just buys time. So what are we buying time for today? 95% worldwide vaccine rate? What’s the goal because it’s certainly not to end it.

We’ve never had the tools to even attempt to change the outcome of infectious diseases until recently, let alone a novel one doing is own adaptations, in all of human history. So since this is our first go at attempting anything like this, it will end the way all the previous ones have. The thing we have some ability to control is the damage. Lives lost, disabilities, functionality of our healthcare system. We never had the opportunity to worry about the preservation of last one before. ICU was the outcome of the challenges of Polio, we didn't start with it. And Polio existed before the 50s outbreak so there was some natural immunity. If we value healthcare, we have to not burden it.

If before, we were in a cart, careening down a hill on a curvy road hoping not to tip it over, what we have now are breaks. The buying time is still important because it gives us the ability to slow down and attempt to steer. To get us far enough down the hill that went we take our foot off the break, we won't speed up too fast again and tip over on the final curves. That's why I posted last week. We started at the top of the mountain with 100% population naïve, got down to 30% before Delta, 15ish% after Delta, Omicron will take out another chunk. Other countries have different numbers, but we're all getting closer to the zero end, we're not still hanging around the 100% end. We are getting off the steep mountain parts. The goal is to get us down the lower bound asymptote at a speed that doesn't overwhelm healthcare, same as it always was.

What we still have to learn is if there is enough inertia (breakthrough infection) that keeps us going up cresting smaller hills with occasionally fast descents (a bad COVID season). Way upthread I mentioned the Russian Flu, which there was some speculation might have been another coronavirus emergence. The significant outbreaks lasted 5 years (1889-1895). That was what the "let it rip" option meant. 5 years of increased disease burden during the winter months. Hospital care wasn't as integrated into people's lives so 5 years of interruption for that wouldn't be so devastating as it would be now. Everyone wants this over, but we still probably don't have the necessary tools (or will) to make it happen. We have introduced the option to have everyone run to FOP or ROTR at rope drop causing big problems with too many people, or to schedule FP (people take precautions to try to spread out how many people are sick on a given day or week).

The faster way available to us is vaccine mandates, but there is still too much resistance anywhere, because people think we can still just wait this out.

 

[Touchdown]

Look to the markets today people, they predicted the fall in March 2020. Enjoy the holidays January is going to be extremely bleak. Also stay safe.

 

[DisneyFan32]

We’ve never had the tools to even attempt to change the outcome of infectious diseases until recently, let alone a novel one doing is own adaptations, in all of human history. So since this is our first go at attempting anything like this, it will end the way all the previous ones have. The thing we have some ability to control is the damage. Lives lost, disabilities, functionality of our healthcare system. We never had the opportunity to worry about the preservation of last one before. ICU was the outcome of the challenges of Polio, we didn't start with it. And Polio existed before the 50s outbreak so there was some natural immunity. If we value healthcare, we have to not burden it.

If before, we were in a cart, careening down a hill on a curvy road hoping not to tip it over, what we have now are breaks. The buying time is still important because it gives us the ability to slow down and attempt to steer. To get us far enough down the hill that went we take our foot off the break, we won't speed up too fast again and tip over on the final curves. That's why I posted last week. We started at the top of the mountain with 100% population naïve, got down to 30% before Delta, 15ish% after Delta, Omicron will take out another chunk. Other countries have different numbers, but we're all getting closer to the zero end, we're not still hanging around the 100% end. We are getting off the steep mountain parts. The goal is to get us down the lower bound asymptote at a speed that doesn't overwhelm healthcare, same as it always was.

What we still have to learn is if there is enough inertia (breakthrough infection) that keeps us going up cresting smaller hills with occasionally fast descents (a bad COVID season). Way upthread I mentioned the Russian Flu, which there was some speculation might have been another coronavirus emergence. The significant outbreaks lasted 5 years (1889-1895). That was what the "let it rip" option meant. 5 years of increased disease burden during the winter months. Hospital care wasn't as integrated into people's lives so 5 years of interruption for that wouldn't be so devastating as it would be now. Everyone wants this over, but we still probably don't have the necessary tools (or will) to make it happen. We have introduced the option to have everyone run to FOP or ROTR at rope drop causing big problems with too many people, or to schedule FP (people take precautions to try to spread out how many people are sick on a given day or week).

The faster way available to us is vaccine mandates, but there is still too much resistance anywhere, because people think we can still just wait this out.

Wait until tomorrow when Biden will make announcing to fighting the pandemic faster.

 

[mmascari]

If an accurate, easy to do yourself, test that was cheap and easy to produce billions of per week was able to be created then morning testing would be a way to control spread quite well. Unfortunately I don't think anything is close to being available that checks all of those boxes.

Accurate enough would be good enough. You make up for it with volume.

Walmart sells them for $7 a test. A $14 two pack BinaxNOW. CVS sells the same thing for $25. So, either Walmart is loss leading or selling at cost or pennies above cost, or CVS is has a more expensive operations cost and needs the higher price.

I wonder how much of the $7 is actual test costs vs mark up to cover prior development cost. If it's all materials, hard to drive it down. But, if half the cost is to cover the initial development and initial factory spread out over the expected production run, then someone ordering 1.5 billion tests should be able to drive that price down, spreading that overhead across the huge volume. Not to mention, the profit margin can be a lot smaller on that volume and still turn out hugely profitable.

At $7 for 1.5 billion tests to hit 300 million people 5 days a week for 1 year is $546 billion dollars.

It's only $273B at $3.50 a test if they can drive the price down.

Compared to the economic damage the pandemic is going to cost and the other relief costs, it doesn't sound that bad. I mean, it's not great, but it's not like its out of the realm of possibility.

The assumption that we didn't need to keep pushing testing and could count on just the vaccine was a bad policy.

 

[Lilofan]

Look to the markets today people, they predicted the fall in March 2020. Enjoy the holidays January is going to be extremely bleak. Also stay safe.

Anyone flush with cash and it’s a buyers market in stocks. Wall Street is predicting a steep decline in the markets today. At times when that happens investors get nervous and limit their spending to support the economy.

 

[Touchdown]

Anyone flush with cash and it’s a buyers market in stocks. Wall Street is predicting a steep decline in the markets today. At times when that happens investors get nervous and limit their spending to support the economy.

“Never try to catch a falling knife” being the counter argument to that. Not that it matters to me I ascribe to the wisdom of Jack Bogle and dollar cost average and buy and hold forever. My next investment will occur January 3rd (if you don’t count the dividend reinvestment that will occur sometime in the next week) as scheduled because I always buy my monthly allotment on the first trading day of the month.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

Accurate enough would be good enough. You make up for it with volume.

Walmart sells them for $7 a test. A $14 two pack BinaxNOW. CVS sells the same thing for $25. So, either Walmart is loss leading or selling at cost or pennies above cost, or CVS is has a more expensive operations cost and needs the higher price.

I wonder how much of the $7 is actual test costs vs mark up to cover prior development cost. If it's all materials, hard to drive it down. But, if half the cost is to cover the initial development and initial factory spread out over the expected production run, then someone ordering 1.5 billion tests should be able to drive that price down, spreading that overhead across the huge volume. Not to mention, the profit margin can be a lot smaller on that volume and still turn out hugely profitable.

At $7 for 1.5 billion tests to hit 300 million people 5 days a week for 1 year is $546 billion dollars.

It's only $273B at $3.50 a test if they can drive the price down.

Compared to the economic damage the pandemic is going to cost and the other relief costs, it doesn't sound that bad. I mean, it's not great, but it's not like its out of the realm of possibility.

The assumption that we didn't need to keep pushing testing and could count on just the vaccine was a bad policy.

Even then, is it really going to be enough? There are enough deniers still roaming around pretending everything is perfectly normal who won't get tested unless forced to. NJ has a program where you can order an at-home saliva test for free and the State will ship it to you overnight via UPS and set up a virtual meeting with a doctor to go over how to use the test and discuss any symptoms - all for the low low price of 100% free. You don't even need to have symptoms or known exposure to someone with COVID-19 to get the test. They just want people to test if they feel like they need to for whatever reason they may have. Yet I know people who are living in the same household as others who currently have the virus and their excuse for not getting tested is, "I probably already have it, so why bother getting tested?" The only reason the first person in that household even got got tested in the first place (even after knowing they had been exposed and are unvaccinated) was because they had to in order to visit a family friend who is battling cancer. Thankfully, they did get tested and didn't visit that friend. Had it not been for that, these people would have all refused to get tested and would be wandering through stores and their workplaces spreading COVID-19 to who knows how many other people. It's frustrating and infuriating, but that's what the rest of society is up against right now. The ones who refuse to play a part in making things better and complain about any mitigations (which have been very few in NJ for quite a while now aside from masks in schools, public transportation, and government buildings) are the ones helping to drag this on and make things worse - and worse yet, they refuse to acknowledge that their actions impact anyone else.