Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[Disstevefan1]

I’ve been wondering this myself. My husband worked the last four days the parks were open. He interacts with tons of guests, and his breakroom for his fellow CMs is tiny. Lots of possibility for infection. My kids and I were at the parks the last 3 days it was open (I know some people won’t like me for doing that, but what’s done is done, and we’ve been properly social distancing ever since). I’m seasonal, and I hadn’t worked since January, but my co-workers were one of the roles still operating a few days after the parks, a role that is in very close quarters with guests all day long. My son’s father also works at Disney, and I literately have hundreds of friends and past co-workers from the parks. Not one of them has been sick. Not one of them has posted anything of Facebook about one of their friends or family being sick. Considering how contagious this virus is, and Disney has tens of thousands of people, many with questionable hygiene practices at best, from all over...how on earth are NO CMs sick? I mean, I don’t know all 77k employees, but considering there’s only around 1600 positive cases in the surrounding four counties, it’s very possible that not a single CM has the virus. There was even that one guy who died from the virus who was apparently here at Disney when he was more than likely contagious. So why isn’t the Orlando area a hotbed? Now, there could easily be an answer that my uneducated peabrain can’t figure out, but I’m with you on this one - with the hundreds of thousands of guests we’ve had on property in the months before the closure, how is this area not as bad as Louisiana or NY or some of the other hotspots? I’m thankful it’s not, but it seems to be contrary to everything we know about this virus and how contagious it is.

There must be CMs that are asymptomatic. The whole reason for the stay at home is so it’s not spread by folks that are asymptomatic.

If I were a CM and had mIld symptoms, now at home, I would keep it to myself and quietly recover.

I do agree that it is strange no CM is infected and is NOT sick or that don’t have symptom severe enough to see a Dr.!

And for all the conspiracy theorists I think It would be impossible for Disney to cover up that a WDW CM has it because the local media would for sure find out!

But ZERO CMs infected is not possible. I dont know what’s up with this.

 

[flynnibus]

There’s no firm plan. My wife is a teacher in NJ. They have no firm plans, because this is a total disaster. Teachers are not prepared for this. Students are not prepared.

Wrong headed. Any classroom time is better then no classroom time. It’s simply the easy way out for administration and government. Sad.

This is not something you can judge universally -- and certainly not without being privy to all the constraints. The state requirements are different... the level of technology rollout is different... the demographics and student body is different... the standing calendars are different.

You don't understand the constraints they are trying to solve for.

For instance in my county... every kid 5th grade and up already had chromebooks. Grades 3-5th were accelerated within the first two weeks to get them all chromebooks too. But poorer counties in the state aren't at this same level. But the Governor already set stay-at-home to April 30. That left only 1 month of classes. Then the Governor extends stay at home until June 10.. which means no school calendar. Makes it pretty easy to say 'no school in person'.

In PA, they already have a stay at home order until April 30. That leaves only one month for school.. and if the Stay at home order changes, then everything gets shuffled again.

Young kids need consistency... trying to go one path, be aborted, change, change again, etc. The schools are trying to cope with many constraints that are built into law... with a changing landscape.. and change the wheels while the bus is still moving.

I don't think you'd want to be in their shoes at all.

 

[Lilofan]

There must be CMs that are asymptomatic. The whole reason for the stay at home is so it’s not spread by folks that are asymptomatic.

If I were a CM and had mIld symptoms, now at home, I would keep it to myself and quietly recover.

I do agree that it is strange no CM is infected and is NOT sick or that don’t have symptom severe enough to see a Dr.!

And for all the conspiracy theorists I think It would be impossible for Disney to cover up that a WDW CM has it because the local media would for sure find out!

But ZERO CMs infected is not possible. I dont know what’s up with this.

This would be terrible PR for Disney. Perhaps that info is not being released to the media.

 

[flynnibus]

That makes sense in Texas. We get out of school the last week of June. Think we should just call it now?

Not worth the time or effort. Sheesh.

Every week spent turning over and changing things and 'adjusting' is taking away from possible instruction time. You literally just typed out how your situation differs from theirs... but fail to grasp that your situation is not the same as theirs.

 

[TheDisneyDaysOfOurLives]

This would be terrible PR for Disney. Perhaps that info is not being released to the media.

I don't think Disney has any control over that. They technically wouldn't even be privy to the medical records of one of their employees without the express consent of that employee.

 

[natatomic]

There must be CMs that are asymptomatic. The whole reason for the stay at home is so it’s not spread by folks that are asymptomatic.

If I were a CM and had mIld symptoms, now at home, I would keep it to myself and quietly recover.

I do agree that it is strange no CM is infected and is NOT sick or that don’t have symptom severe enough to see a Dr.!

And for all the conspiracy theorists I think It would be impossible for Disney to cover up that a WDW CM has it because the local media would for sure find out!

But ZERO CMs infected is not possible. I dont know what’s up with this.

Oh yeah, don’t misunderstand, I’m not trying to suggest a conspiracy theory. And I’m sure many, if not most CMs were at least exposed and many probably became asymptomatic. And like I said, I know only a fraction of a fraction of all the CMs, so I of course can’t say with certainty that ZERO got sick (keyword: sick, not asymptomatic). But, just looking at the number of positives in the 4 surrounding counties, it’s within the realm of possibility. It’s just weird. It does make me wonder if there’s some merit to doing things differently to what we’re doing. Maybe CMs were exposed to many small numbers of people who were positive for the virus over time and it gave their bodies a better chance to develop antibodies and fight it off? I’m not sure how it works, but again, I just can’t understand how more people in this area aren’t sick, given the sheer numbers of people, both CMs and guests here at any given time.

 

[DisneyCane]

PA schools officially closed for the remainder of the school year

Why? What is the rush to make these decisions. Who does it benefit?

I could understand Philadelphia schools or schools in other state hotspots which are unlikely to have the daily case curve get to very low before the end of the school year. I think this is one of those decisions that could be made on a county by county basis. The school children aren't traveling around the state to other counties schools. I do agree that either way, there is no harm in waiting a few weeks to make the decision with more data. It's not like there is a lot of advanced planning involved to either stay closed or reopen.

If they decided to stay closed then it is just a continuation of what is going on. If they decided to reopen then they just need however long it takes to have maintenance check the buildings and busses.

 

[GoofGoof]

This would be terrible PR for Disney. Perhaps that info is not being released to the media.

This is probably the case, and why would they release the info to the media. There‘s no reason to think there are not Disney CMs who were infected. Right now no cases are public, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

 

[hopemax]

So why isn’t the Orlando area a hotbed? Now, there could easily be an answer that my uneducated peabrain can’t figure out, but I’m with you on this one - with the hundreds of thousands of guests we’ve had on property in the months before the closure, how is this area not as bad as Louisiana or NY or some of the other hotspots? I’m thankful it’s not, but it seems to be contrary to everything we know about this virus and how contagious it is.

It's the timeline. WDW (and many other places) closed it's doors BEFORE the virus had an opportunity to spread. But people seem very resistant to this idea. Somehow the virus must not be so bad, even though it's bad. People didn't get sick, because it wasn't there....yet. That is the answer that is not contrary to how the virus operates.

Exponential growth is hard for people to wrap their brains around. But getting people away from each other, even just 1 or 2 cycles of transmission leads to HUGE variances in the outcome. If WDW closed a week later, or two weeks later, the outcome would likely have been very different. If companies didn't start limiting travel in February it would have been different. If spring break was earlier and there was more NY/NJ arrivals, it would have been different, if people who go to Mardi Gras, then the next week go to WDW it would have been different. We got very, very lucky.

I just hope that it doesn't give people a false sense of security and people underestimate the risk of reopening too soon. The virus is still very contagious, so any place where people are going to do a lot of talking, screaming, singing, basically spitting everywhere, are going to be problems. It will only take a few people being in close proximity while they are infectious for this to start all over again. This time people thinking, we survived the first wave, it must have been overblown, and being resistant to any more disruptions.

 

[Lilofan]

This is probably the case, and why would they release the info to the media. There‘s no reason to think there are not Disney CMs who were infected. Right now no cases are public, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

True. Disney seems to be front page news when a cast member is involved ( ie CM getting arrested )

 

[GoofGoof]

True. Disney seems to be front page news when a cast member is involved ( ie CM getting arrested )

Arrest records are public. Unless God forbid a CM dies there wouldn’t be a public record of the infection. Even then the family or friends of the victim would have to spill the beans. A hospital cannot publicly release the name of a patient without consent.

 

[lilypgirl]

It’s encouraging to see how much we can do with science when properly motivated. There are about a dozen different companies and universities working on vaccines in the US alone and I’m sure many more than that worldwide. There are 8 billion people on the planet so lots to vaccinate. For once a bulk of the resources and focus of the governments around the world is on working together to do something to benefit mankind. Once we are all vaccinated and the threat passes we’ll probably go back to attacking each other, but it’s nice to see practically the whole world united for common good.

We will never all be vaccinate nor should we be. I am not an anti vaxxer but no way I am OK with forcing this on anyone individual.

 

[flynnibus]

I could understand Philadelphia schools or schools in other state hotspots which are unlikely to have the daily case curve get to very low before the end of the school year. I think this is one of those decisions that could be made on a county by county basis. The school children aren't traveling around the state to other counties schools.

While implementation is done county by county - the standards and requirements are driven at the state-wide level. The state has to deal with trying to be uniform across the state.

I do agree that either way, there is no harm in waiting a few weeks to make the decision with more data. It's not like there is a lot of advanced planning involved to either stay closed or reopen.

And that's where you are wrong... you can't be half-pregnant when it comes to redefining the standards for education for the school year.

If they decided to reopen then they just need however long it takes to have maintenance check the buildings and busses.

No that is not all they have to deal with. The facilities are the least of their worries.

 

[flynnibus]

This would be terrible PR for Disney. Perhaps that info is not being released to the media.

There are requirements about reporting to public health. Disney has limited control over how this information can be bounded. Now, that probably doesn't preclude them necessarily trying to make it difficult or obfuscated to save their own butts... but there is a alot of things mandated here. Public health usually trumps privacy... they just make it anonymized so you don't necessarily know the individual's name.

 

[Lilofan]

Arrest records are public. Unless God forbid a CM dies there wouldn’t be a public record of the infection. Even then the family or friends of the victim would have to spill the beans. A hospital cannot publicly release the name of a patient without consent.

Makes sense. If a cast member's name released with their consent the media will have front page news CM from #%&@ theme park...

 

[GoofGoof]

We will never all be vaccinate nor should we be. I am not an anti vaxxer but no way I am OK with forcing this on anyone individual.

There’s no need for everyone. This virus is much less contagious than something like measles which requires 95% vaccinated for herd immunity. The estimates for this were 40-60% of the population would need immunity before herd immunity would set in. Even half the population vaccinated is still in the billions.

 

[Kevin_W]

Same with us. Personally, I hope they continue to develop learning at home. I earned 2 degrees 100% online...one of which is for education. K-12 CAN be done online, you just need time to develop the lesson plans and gather resources (and in a best-case scenario, develop software). It's not ideal by any stretch, but I'd rather my kids not return to a public school setting this year.

I think reasonable minds can differ on this, but I'd much rather kids returned even if only for 2-3 weeks. I don't think there is much "ramping back up" as another poster said - this is what the schools/teachers do. Even at the beginning of the school year there are only 2-3 days to get into the full swing of things and that is after a summer break where there hasn't been distance learning going on.

Distance learning has been a fine substitute when there is no alternative, but I don't think it has been an adequate replacement for in-class learning. I agree with @xdan0920 that any classroom time is better than no classroom time.

 

[lilypgirl]

It's been a while since I was in school, barely remember but it was good times. How do high school juniors get graded and with a class ranking. I know some of the smarter ones applied for academic scholarships to college and their test scores were a big part in getting these awards.

Mom of a senior. Most academic scholarships are based on GPA up to the end of the first semester of their senior year. My daughter attends a private school and they went online 2 days after schools closed for the first round back in March. They have a great plan for their students and I don't feel like my daughter is missing out on anything academic right now.

 

[lilypgirl]

There’s no need for everyone. This virus is much less contagious than something like measles which requires 95% vaccinated for herd immunity. The estimates for this were 40-60% of the population would need immunity before herd immunity would set in. Even half the population vaccinated is still in the billions.

Thanks I misunderstood what you meant.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

I think reasonable minds can differ on this, but I'd much rather kids returned even if only for 2-3 weeks. I don't think there is much "ramping back up" as another poster said - this is what the schools/teachers do. Even at the beginning of the school year there are only 2-3 days to get into the full swing of things and that is after a summer break where there hasn't been distance learning going on.

Distance learning has been a fine substitute when there is no alternative, but I don't think it has been an adequate replacement for in-class learning. I agree with @xdan0920 that any classroom time is better than no classroom time.

I don't disagree that it's been inadequate...in class learning is miles better than remote. My point was that it can be done, and done well, but there needs to be time, and in current circumstances, we had none. Still, we haven't hit our peak in MA yet, and won't until mid-April...and I'm still not comfortable sending my boys to public school this year. Schools are germ factories.