Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

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disneygeek90

Well-Known Member
People are so quick to judge what others should be able to do with their money without knowing what is going on in their lives. If you live in HCOL, $100K isn't much. If you have a family of five with a wife that is a SAHM, $100K isn't much. If you're helping take care of your parents, $100K isn't much.

In all reality, the government should just issue checks out to everyone and then based on 2020 tax returns, require refunds of it if you exceed a certain income level (I'm more along the lines of if you have make more than 150K individually or 250K as a couple in 2020, you would then repay the money the government gives out). It also needs to be more money and for a longer time period.
Good point, size of families is a huge factor. Think of a family of 5 making $100k and a single person making $60k. The lives of those two people and what they spend their money on is quite different. It would be reasonable to assume the person making $100k feels more strain overall fiscally.
 

TheDisneyDaysOfOurLives

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
I think everyone has likely learned a little lesson from this. The economy was booming and a lot of times that makes people accept more risk. A lot of Americans should have had a little more in their rainy day fund. It’s a tough lesson to learn but as a nation we all live a little too much paycheck to paycheck. I know not everyone can afford to save money, but there are plenty of people driving around in nice new cars with nice clothing and taking expensive vacations (the mouse ain’t cheap). I can’t put a dollar threshold on it since the cost of living varies dramatically from place to place. As a general guideline we should all try to have several months worth of expenses as a minimum in savings. That won’t help people who are unemployed for months but it would get most people through this immediate crisis.

I do hope everyone has learned a lesson from this, though that lesson isn't necessarily great for the economy (economy wants people spending their money, not saving it). The funny part is we have spent the last six months paying off all of our debt (we still have a little bit left, but not much). Good timing! While, knock on wood, my job is considered safe at the moment (company has said we have good cash reserves, plus the client I'm working with has a contract signed with us until the end of the year and they've been talking about extending it into 2021), I will be happy to not have this debt and will have eliminated all debt (except for car) by end of 2020 with a significant amount in savings. We've only been able to do that because I received a job that increased my pay significantly and they pay all premiums for health insurance.

Wife and I have looked at this and know we're lucky, taking this opportunity to save money and now looking at buying a house next year (I was waiting for the market to soften in terms of house prices and I think that's going to happen). We'll also be in a good position to do our part in spending money in the economy while ensuring we don't take on any additional debt.
 

"El Gran Magnifico"

Bring Me A Shrubbery
Premium Member
Were they? Imagine if we had simply done mass testing of everyone and quarantined everyone that had HIV in the last 80's... how many lives would have been saved because we had eliminated the virus?

The bubonic plague is still around. You know, "Black Death". There are still people contracting Polio. You need to do better than that.
 

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
The biggest if is that they have a vaccine for the virus in 2 years. How many billions of dollars have been pumped into finding a cure for HIV and still nothing... a cure for cancer? And you think that suddenly they will find one for this virus pretty much overnight.... I hope they do... but I seriously doubt it.

As for the length of immunity other viruses in the same family only provide the person with as little as 3 months immunity after they get over the infection... So 9 months may very well be wishful thinking.

Finding a cure for cancer is basically impossible because cancer isn't one thing. It's hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of different things that we just lump in together as cancer. They have essentially found cures for specific types of cancer, though.

Regardless, this isn't like HIV or cancer. Finding a vaccine, or at least a highly effective treatment, shouldn't be that difficult. It just takes some time.
 

RobWDW1971

Well-Known Member
Where are you getting the figure of 1,000 from?
It's called modeling - I used 1,000, 10,000, etc. Feel free to use a number, 100,000, million? Tell me the number of those elderly and with pre-existing conditions that will die from shutting down the economy vs. those that would have died without these extreme measures and we can model out that cost. Last year nearly 2.1 million elderly died in the US - what is the increase we are preventing from those two scenarios?

I assume your position is not that if we lose 5 million jobs and $1.5 trillion dollars it is "worth it" if we save just one person or a hundred is it? Or is it?

A hypothetical headline in the WSJ of "Hospitals overwhelmed across America, patients can't get care" would not crater the economy, in fact, hospital and medical stocks would boom. People dying in the short term from lack of medical care would not drive this level of economic loss.
 
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TheDisneyDaysOfOurLives

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
Good point, size of families is a huge factor. Think of a family of 5 making $100k and a single person making $60k. The lives of those two people and what they spend their money on is quite different. It would be reasonable to assume the person making $100k feels more strain overall fiscally.

It is and I feel it (I'm that family of 5 making $100K). The funny part is I feel the financial stress less now with paying off debt and being able to put some money away, but I've only been at that level for six months. Before that? Massive stress and right now, I would be freaking out because we were just making what we needed.

That's why I'm a proponent of UBI (my wife is a SAHM) and am hoping the government does the right thing here ($2K/$1K per month for the next six months). In our case, that allows us to build up our savings and buy a house next year in addition to doing vacations, eating out, etc. which will help the economy rebound. For others, it allows them to just survive for a while until we're on the other side of this and businesses are back up and running.

Long term, we need to have UBI in this country because unemployment benefits are meager to begin with and if you're working a job that does exceed a certain amount, you're getting a pittance of what you were making before with almost a guaranteed 6-12 weeks before you can start the next job. I hope we start really looking at our country and trying to figure out a better balance that prioritizes a social net and people over wars and corporate profits. I hope this is the wake up call our country needed.
 

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
A hypothetical headline in the WSJ of "Hospitals overwhelmed across America, patients can't get care" would not crater the economy, in fact, hospital and medical stocks would boom.

You're totally misunderstanding the situation.

That kind of headline WOULD crater the economy. Not because of the headline itself, but because most of the country would be sick and unable to work, and thousands of people would be dying. Not only from the coronavirus, but from heart attacks, car accidents (well, there'd be probably be far less of these), etc.

It's not as though people being treated for Covid-19 are in some totally separate healthcare system. It would overwhelm the ENTIRE system. The number of deaths would skyrocket from things that are normally treatable because we wouldn't have the resources to treat them. That's where the real issue is. I'm making up these numbers, but just as an example, it could easily be that while 10% of people normally die after a heart attack, that number could jump to 50% because they're unable to effectively treat them.

That's why doctors are terrified right now. It's not the coronavirus itself (although that's part of it), it's the cascading effects that would tremendously hinder their ability to provide care for all patients and all conditions.
 

Clyde Birdbrain

Unknown Member
Kinsa smart thermometers use real-time data for this health map. Look how red Florida is right now.


Article about it:


This state needs to shut down like California right now!
 

thomas998

Well-Known Member
Finding a cure for cancer is basically impossible because cancer isn't one thing. It's hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of different things that we just lump in together as cancer. They have essentially found cures for specific types of cancer, though.

Regardless, this isn't like HIV or cancer. Finding a vaccine, or at least a highly effective treatment, shouldn't be that difficult. It just takes some time.
Well, consider SARS the brother of the current virus... It has been almost 20 years and still no vaccine for it... in fact that was what China was working on in the Wuhan bio-lab near ground zero. So it isn't like this is going to be easy if it was we would have already found a vaccine for SARS and the common cold.
 

ImperfectPixie

Well-Known Member
I may need to stop over. I really need a haircut ;)

Thats a total joke. I’ve left my property once in the past 8 days. I say property because I’ve been going out in the backyard and playing with the puppy for a few hours every day. She is very happy to have everyone on lockdown like this;). At least someone‘s enjoying this :)
Hubby and I have each been going out once a week, and only for food shopping. My boys are THRILLED! They made me a "happy birthday mamma!" video and put it on YouTube for me. ❤
Yep.

If you looked at it in a very cold logical way you would probably find that the best solution from a lives saved standpoint would be to ignore the virus completely and hope everyone gets infected together. Yes you overrun the hospitals with maybe a push of 15% of the people needing but not being able to get medical treatment... and a large number of them would die. But since the virus doesn't provide life long immunity when you get it, and there is no guarantee that we will ever have a vaccine for it... well doing a slow role like we are doing may bring the death rate down to 1.5%.... but if the people continually face the virus year after year after year because your immunity never lasts more than 3 to 9 months... Well over time you'll actually lose more people than if you just pushed to get everyone infected so the virus was burned out and gone because after 12 years you have had as many die as you would in one group catastrophe.

But you would never see any politician pushing that theory because it would be political suicide.
I was under the impression that they weren't sure how long the immunity you get from having had it lasts? As in, it could last two weeks, or three months...but that they aren't sure...
Thus the debate and differing opinions from different Governors across the country. Can they reduce the risk enough by allowing some of the population to still go to work, some businesses remaining open, and implement enough procedural precautions to limit the spread., That’s what every mayor and governor is deciding right now.
No one knows what the correct answer is, only time will tell.

All risks have to be weighed.. As I stated in a previous comment- they are trying to find the balance between health of citizens, and their economical health as well- at least preserving as much as possible while trying to limit the spread.

This isn’t going to happen here.

I am fully grasping the wide ranging effects of this situation. I fully realize that if all non essential business shut down, that many won’t reopen, and the ones who do will be forced to lay people off.
I have been in meetings for the past week where we have discussed layoffs. Where we know that if we close we will not be the same when reopen. I don’t want to be given a mandated number and told to chose who I need to let go. I understand that not everyone is thinking about these things, but they exist, the conversations are going on... and most of us realize that the government isn’t going to be able to bail everyone out.
All non-essential businesses may end up shutting down, they may not... what I was explaining is why not all governors are doing it.. why they are waiting.
Those differing opinions are part of the problem. If ALL open businesses followed the protocols your office is, it wouldn't be a big deal, but that would literally NEVER be possible.

That kind of lock-down could very well happen here. Americans are in general stubborn, selfish, and short-sighted (case in point, the spring break kids). Some people already aren't following instructions...and it could likely get to a point where you'll have to force them to. Curfews are being implemented...first step of many on the road to lock-downs. Honestly, I'm surprised we haven't seen more incidents of problems because of people wanting and/or not acknowledging social distancing.

And to your underlined statement...I would much rather be given a number of people to layoff, than to wait and have a percentage of those people be dead because hospitals were overwhelmed. Laid off people can collect unemployment...and when people are hungry (not the literal use of the term "hungry" here), they can be incredibly creative in finding a way to better their situation. I also have a feeling that we may see the return of multi-generational households in some cases going forward (which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing...it takes a village and all).
To the bold- we don’t know that will happen. We are trying to take precautions to find a balance. We will see if it works, or not. We don’t know either way right now.
We absolutely know - we can look at what's happening in other countries around the world to see.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
Regardless, this isn't like HIV or cancer. Finding a vaccine, or at least a highly effective treatment, shouldn't be that difficult. It just takes some time.

It is that difficult... for similar reasons why the flu is a yearly problem still. 1) It's a virus - we have a really hard time killing those 2) As a virus it frequently mutates... again eluding treatment and prevention.

Our best method against virus is usually immunity and vaccines... which work by triggering the body to build its own immunity.

Viruses suck...
 

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
Well, consider SARS the brother of the current virus... It has been almost 20 years and still no vaccine for it... in fact that was what China was working on in the Wuhan bio-lab near ground zero. So it isn't like this is going to be easy if it was we would have already found a vaccine for SARS and the common cold.

There's not much money involved in finding a vaccine for SARS or the common cold (or an overwhelming public health reason). There is for Covid-19.

That could change if things blow over, or if they find a highly effective treatment -- if they do, most labs will stop working on a potential Covid-19 vaccine and move on to something else. We likely would have at least a partially effective SARS vaccine by now if it was a widespread illness, because far more people would be working on one.
 

hopemax

Well-Known Member
WSJ today:
Coronavirus-Triggered Downturn Could Cost 5 Million U.S. Jobs
Economic output seen shrinking by as much as $1.5 trillion with recession all but certain

So soon we can start doing the math, if we save 1,000 lives vs allowing the economy to function, that would be ballpark $1.5 billion per elderly/pre-existing condition fatality over the 2.1M elderly deaths last year. If we save 10,000 vs non-shutdown, that would be 150 million per life, etc. Will be a fascinating after action review that will inform future reactions.

Will also be interesting to hear from those 5 million folks who lost their jobs if our response was indeed "worth it". And note that hospitals being overrun in the short-term would certainly be unfortunate, but that situation would not destroy the economy especially if the elderly are the ones dying in a scale similar to the 2.1 million who die annually.

They were losing their jobs anyway! I am going to keep repeating it. The US economy does not have immunity against a global-wide situation like this. Just China, South Korea and Japan reacting in their county's self-interest made things difficult for businesses who depend on those regions. Next, add Europe. Then take away the manufacturing in the other parts of Asia as factory workers die in droves. Then add the people in the US, who look at what is happening around the world and choose to self-isolate on their own or flat out panic as their friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, church parishioners, etc get sick (or worse) around them.

The only thing that changes is the timeline. People are losing their jobs this month and not in two months. The people that lose their jobs in 2 months would have lost them in 4 months. Businesses, small, medium and large, would have died by 1000 cuts, one at a time under the cloud of "you should have just planned better." The swiftness of this will allow some of them to preserve the little capital they have, tap into the groundswell of those who are pledging to help in the recovery, since it is affecting everyone, and try and rebuild when the dust settles.
 

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
It is that difficult... for similar reasons why the flu is a yearly problem still. 1) It's a virus - we have a really hard time killing those 2) As a virus it frequently mutates... again eluding treatment and prevention.

Our best method against virus is usually immunity and vaccines... which work by triggering the body to build its own immunity.

Viruses suck...

I know all of that. The difference is there are people worldwide all throwing a ton of resources at this, which typically isn't the case for one specific virus. That doesn't guarantee they will find something, but it's pretty likely they will. Medical researchers are pretty confident about it.
 

thomas998

Well-Known Member
You're totally misunderstanding the situation.

That kind of headline WOULD crater the economy. Not because of the headline itself, but because most of the country would be sick and unable to work, and thousands of people would be dying. Not only from the coronavirus, but from heart attacks, car accidents (well, there'd be probably be far less of these), etc.

It's not as though people being treated for Covid-19 are in some totally separate healthcare system. It would overwhelm the ENTIRE system. The number of deaths would skyrocket from things that are normally treatable because we wouldn't have the resources to treat them. That's where the real issue is. I'm making up these numbers, but just as an example, it could easily be that while 10% of people normally die after a heart attack, that number could jump to 50% because they're unable to effectively treat them.

That's why doctors are terrified right now. It's not the coronavirus itself (although that's part of it), it's the cascading effects that would tremendously hinder their ability to provide care for all patients and all conditions.

You are missing the fact that most people don't get that sick from it. If 80% of the people got violently ill then you would be in a world of hurt... but when 14% end up seeking medical treatment, well even if you had all of those seeking medical treatment die you wouldn't be so bad off that your system collapsed. And at some point the person having a heart attack or suffering from an accident wouldn't be out of luck because the hospitals would have to come to the conclusion that if you were the 14% really suffering from the virus that they could only afford to give you some pain pills and send you on your merry way.

If some hospital do collapse this will result in more hospitals and doctors in the future... quite possibly it will result in an over build of hospitals and over supply of doctors. Shocks to the system tend to have those types of results.
 

DisneyDebRob

Well-Known Member
Hubby and I have each been going out once a week, and only for food shopping. My boys are THRILLED! They made me a "happy birthday mamma!" video and put it on YouTube for me. ❤

I was under the impression that they weren't sure how long the immunity you get from having had it lasts? As in, it could last two weeks, or three months...but that they aren't sure...

Those differing opinions are part of the problem. If ALL open businesses followed the protocols your office is, it wouldn't be a big deal, but that would literally NEVER be possible.

That kind of lock-down could very well happen here. Americans are in general stubborn, selfish, and short-sighted (case in point, the spring break kids). Some people already aren't following instructions...and it could likely get to a point where you'll have to force them to. Curfews are being implemented...first step of many on the road to lock-downs. Honestly, I'm surprised we haven't seen more incidents of problems because of people wanting and/or not acknowledging social distancing.

And to your underlined statement...I would much rather be given a number of people to layoff, than to wait and have a percentage of those people be dead because hospitals were overwhelmed. Laid off people can collect unemployment...and when people are hungry (not the literal use of the term "hungry" here), they can be incredibly creative in finding a way to better their situation. I also have a feeling that we may see the return of multi-generational households in some cases going forward (which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing...it takes a village and all).

We absolutely know - we can look at what's happening in other countries around the world to see.
Your exactly right. We do know if we are to believe the reports from China. I know , big if. We do know how to control it but can we do it in this country? I think the longer we don’t get a hold on this the worse everything will be down the road from the economy to the death toll. Many here want to keep things open so we don’t tank, I understand that. But it’s usually followed with.. and hope that works.. or .. this way we don’t have a total collapse and maybe we can get a handle on it. Well, IF we believe China, we have the answe. Can we do it though.
 
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