Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[GoofGoof]

The missing element here - and it's part of why Europe has succeeded where we have failed - is support for individuals and businesses so we CAN lockdown. There shouldn't be a choice between a business having to operate during a pandemic - we should be using the full faith and credit of the United States to support the country so we don't have to make these sort of decisions.

We've seen too many countries who paired lockdowns with intense financial support come out of this and starting to return to a cautious state of normalcy. It's not going to be completely safe until there are vaccines or even treatments, but the best chance we have at a functional economy is to starve this thing of its food supply. Because it doesn't matter what governmental dictates happen. If people start seeing an imminent threat, they will stop patronizing their establishments. Government didn't lead with lockdowns; scared people did. They stopped making reservations and such, and government just formalized it.

The thing is, I believe we can get to a point where we're at an acceptable risk, with gigantic amounts of testing and contact tracing. But we were never even near the most minimal requirements for making that happen. And it's very likely COVID already mutated once to make itself exponentially more communicable - and we keep seeing weirder and weirder damage, even in young people. We have to face the reality that half-efforts and equivocations are not gonna be enough against this disease. We have to go on a war footing.

I do feel we blew right past the testing and tracing part and skipped to full open in a lot of places. It is part of the American culture to be suspicious of government. I’ve seen people posting here say that if they tested positive they would not tell the government where they have been and who they had contact with. Some places the government is more forceful in collecting the data. The app never really got off the ground. Lots of missed opportunities.

 

[DCBaker]

Governor Newsom will reportedly order immediate closure of LA county restaurant dining rooms for the next 3 weeks.

Gov. Newsom to Order Immediate Closure of LA Restaurant Dining Rooms for Next Three Weeks

The action comes a little over a month after the state allowed LA County dining rooms to reopen. Outdoor dining will still be allowed, but bars must close entirely.

la.eater.com

 

[milordsloth]

the research is being done right now. Like I mentioned earlier, many of the new cases are being traced back to indoor bars/dining establishments.

The reason I asked is I'm curious how a bar or restaurant situation relates to indoor queues at WDW. I don't think just being inside is necessarily the main risk. A big difference with indoor queues and bars/restaurants is mask usage, people in lines will be spread out and wearing masks. I could be wrong, but it also seems like the bars/restaurants that had issues did not properly follow distancing guidelines.

 

[GoofGoof]

Governor Newsom will reportedly order immediate closure of LA county restaurant dining rooms for the next 3 weeks.

Gov. Newsom to Order Immediate Closure of LA Restaurant Dining Rooms for Next Three Weeks

The action comes a little over a month after the state allowed LA County dining rooms to reopen. Outdoor dining will still be allowed, but bars must close entirely.

la.eater.com

No impact to Downtown Disney unless Orange County does the same.

Buried in the story is the fact that during inspections roughly half of restaurants in the county that had re-opened failed to be in compliance with the regulations. The business owners need to take the rules seriously and comply. It’s a lot worse to be shut down completely again now than it would have been to reduce capacity some or follow other rules. Lessons learned.

 

[DCBaker]

No impact to Downtown Disney unless Orange County does the same.

Buried in the story is the fact that during inspections roughly half of restaurants in the county that had re-opened failed to be in compliance with the regulations. The business owners need to take the rules seriously and comply. It’s a lot worse to be shut down completely again now than it would have been to reduce capacity some or follow other rules. Lessons learned.

This was just announced for Orange County -

 

[DCBaker]

These are the counties targeted with the new "Dimmer Switch" on rollbacks -

Here are the places that will be targeted -

 

[Andrew C]

This was just announced for Orange County -

Darn. Sucks for those businesses. But I guess they gotta do what they gotta do. The bar issue has been reiterated over again throughout the country.

Side note, a local bar from my old neighborhood posted a FB message letting people know they can still fill up growlers to-go and they were teaming up with another local business to help with this.

 

[Dizneykid]

In terms of research, I can still only find the report on the restaurant in China from months ago. Do you have any links you can send for more current studies?

I feel like bars that serve food are being lumped in with Olive Garden type restaurants. Most restaurants in my area will go down permanently if they have to close again. I have not seen enough evidence to justify shutting down indoor dining when it's done right. Bars are more complicated but it's not easy to tell any struggling business to suck it up buttercup.

 

[Dizneykid]

the research is being done right now. Like I mentioned earlier, many of the new cases are being traced back to indoor bars/dining establishments.

How many? Do you have a source? I feel like we need the data before we really know. They should break it down in a report for cases that they can assume an origin point. They have to account for parties and in-house gatherings too. The ripple effect almost certainly occured in households.

 

[DCBaker]

Apple announced it has decided to temporarily re-close 30 of its retail stores in the U.S., bringing the nationwide total to 77. The stores affected are in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. "Due to current COVID-19 conditions in some of the communities we serve, we are temporarily closing stores in these areas," an Apple spokesperson said in a statement.

Apple to temporarily shutter 30 more retail stores, bringing total to 77 in U.S.

Citing a spike in the coronavirus pandemic, Apple Inc. undefined on Wednesday said it has decided to temporarily re-close 30 of its retail stores in the...

t.co

 

[Andrew C]

Feds planning to ‘blitz’ test in Texas to find young adults silently spreading COVID-19

AUSTIN — Federal officials are developing plans for a “blitz” of testing in Texas and other states to find young adults who have no symptoms and may be...

www.google.com

 

[Ponderer]

I feel like bars that serve food are being lumped in with Olive Garden type restaurants. Most restaurants in my area will go down permanently if they have to close again. I have not seen enough evidence to justify shutting down indoor dining when it's done right. Bars are more complicated but it's not easy to tell any struggling business to suck it up buttercup.

I don't understand how there's a thimble's worth of distance between a bar and indoor seating at a restaurant when you have monumental amounts of particles floating out of open mouths with recirculated air spreading them everywhere over an extended period. This is an ideal COVID vector environment. It's almost impossible to conjure up something more likely to transmit this virus.

 

[lisa12000]

I guess the question has to be is why the majority of Europe has managed to open indoor dining and bars without a significant uptick in cases and America hasnt (we are only opening up our bars and dining on Saturday after 104 days of lockdown) - I am worried about our bars opening up as we dont have the best reputation with alcohol but unfortunately our clusters tended to be in factories that havent been Covid compliant for staff and meat packing plants!! And of course we have the threat of strict local lockdowns hanging over our head now...

 

[Dizneykid]

I don't understand how there's a thimble's worth of distance between a bar and indoor seating at a restaurant when you have monumental amounts of particles floating out of open mouths with recirculated air spreading them everywhere over an extended period. This is an ideal COVID vector environment. It's almost impossible to conjure up something more likely to transmit this virus.

I don't know what bars you have in town but they are like night and day in my habitat compared to indoor dining. You can't punish an entire industry for something as yet unproven. What restaurant outbreaks have there been as opposed to bars? All I'm reading about is bars that weren't enforcing many rules. The environment difference is significant. People standing in close range drinking for potentially hours rather than sitting 6 feet away from another table eating food. Some restaurants are small, sure, but many are very spread out and even more so with capacity limits.

 

[Ponderer]

I guess the question has to be is why the majority of Europe has managed to open indoor dining and bars without a significant uptick in cases and America hasnt (we are only opening up our bars and dining on Saturday after 104 days of lockdown) - I am worried about our bars opening up as we dont have the best reputation with alcohol but unfortunately our clusters tended to be in factories that havent been Covid compliant for staff and meat packing plants!! And of course we have the threat of strict local lockdowns hanging over our head now...

I think that's easy. They tested much more aggressively and took contact tracing and social measures a lot more seriously, and waited until their numbers were far lower. We can see this at a few places in the States. I'm in Massachusetts, and we've been in a very, very slow reopening after being one of the hotspots in the nation - plus mask culture really took hold here for the most part. And yesterday, we had our first day of zero COVID deaths since this all began. It's all tentative and fragile, but I'm proud of what we've done here.

We can get there if we're willing to.

* BTW, my privileges to post got restricted bc it got political yesterday. Anyone know how long this lasts? Sorry I got upset about, you know, people dying but didn't mean to harsh the vibe.

 

[milordsloth]

I don't understand how there's a thimble's worth of distance between a bar and indoor seating at a restaurant when you have monumental amounts of particles floating out of open mouths with recirculated air spreading them everywhere over an extended period. This is an ideal COVID vector environment. It's almost impossible to conjure up something more likely to transmit this virus.

I still haven't seen a study actually linking spread through AC as "an ideal COVID vector environment". Especially if distancing guidelines are followed. The closest thing I've seen are the reports of the restaurant in China where a person with Covid was sitting directly next to the intake for the AC. Basically I dont think there is much risk if people are spread out and not directly next to an air intake.

 

[wdisney9000]

I guess the question has to be is why the majority of Europe has managed to open indoor dining and bars without a significant uptick in cases and America hasnt (we are only opening up our bars and dining on Saturday after 104 days of lockdown) - I am worried about our bars opening up as we dont have the best reputation with alcohol but unfortunately our clusters tended to be in factories that havent been Covid compliant for staff and meat packing plants!! And of course we have the threat of strict local lockdowns hanging over our head now...

Here is a pretty good reason why people are panicing and then demanding more freedoms be taken away via regulation.

 

[xdan0920]

I think that's easy. They tested much more aggressively and took contact tracing and social measures a lot more seriously, and waited until their numbers were far lower. We can see this at a few places in the States. I'm in Massachusetts, and we've been in a very, very slow reopening after being one of the hotspots in the nation - plus mask culture really took hold here for the most part. And yesterday, we had our first day of zero COVID deaths since this all began. It's all tentative and fragile, but I'm proud of what we've done here.

We can get there if we're willing to.

Proof?

 

[Ponderer]

I still haven't seen a study actually linking spread through AC as "an ideal COVID vector environment". Especially if distancing guidelines are followed. The closest thing I've seen are the reports of the restaurant in China where a person with Covid was sitting directly next to the intake for the AC. Basically I dont think there is much risk if people are spread out and not directly next to an air intake.

How does distancing helps when the air circulation system is literally transporting particles to every area of the establishment? Over the course of an hour, that air is going to reach every inch of the room. You don't have to be just sitting in front of an air intake.

As some restaurants reopen, model shows how coronavirus can spread farther than 6 feet

"When a virus is caught up in an air stream, it has the potential to move much further than six feet," Professor Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg said.

www.cbsnews.com

See how easily COVID-19 might spread through a restaurant in this black light experiment

The study was performed by experts on contact infection and Japan’s NHK, the country’s national public broadcaster.

www.kxan.com

 

[toolsnspools]

I like to tune out the noise and find real data whenever possible. There are too many agendas out there to get accurate information otherwise. The CDC just posted the most recent data on deaths up to 6/27/20.

COVID-19 Provisional Counts - Weekly Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics

Tabulated data on provisional COVID-19 deaths by age, sex, race and Hispanic origin, and comorbidities. Also includes an index of state-level and county-level mortality data available for download.

www.cdc.gov

As the medical community has learned more about COVID that they have found ways to treat it, and they have reduced the fatality rate accordingly. I'm curious for this chart to be updated with the latest numbers based on the recent increase in total cases.

A couple of things I find interesting about these numbers:
- 112,000 total deaths due to COVID compared to 127,000 on the Johns Hopkins site.
- less than 8,000 people under the age of 55 have died from COVID.
- Over 35,000 (31%) deaths occurred in those over 85. Average life expectancy in the US is about 87.