Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[Casper Gutman]

I don’t much care what conclusions you draw.

What conclusions did you draw?

 

[baymenxpac]

But information isn’t always instantaneously available and studies and analyses take years and years. The whole point of the last few pages is that negative outcome stats won’t be clear for months.

Saying we can only act if the facts are 100% clear and there is no uncertainty amounts to an argument that we can never act.

that is not at all what i'm saying. we obviously are acting without facts being 100% clear. i'm saying when we get NEW facts, we can't ignore them because they contradict the old information we had.

take masks. there is a huge push back on masks in this country in part because the government, doctors, public health officials, etc. spent months saying they weren't effective and not to wear them. okay. now they say wear them. okay. that's cool. if you found new information that it is absolutely stopping the spread, i'm in.

now let's do schools. in march, we were petrified for our children. i was. didn't matter what the CDC told us about vulnerable populations. now we have five months at data that show MIS-C is extremely rare and virtually all kids that are infected recover; that they're at a far higher risk to other viral illnesses than COVID-19. what's more, it seems that almost all countries that re-opened schools shortly after their peaks saw that schools make no meaningful difference in spread. we can't just respond to that by saying, "whatever, politician X wants to kill our kids." even if you don't the POTUS or the secretary of education (which, personally, i do not). maybe it's more productive to think, "hm. maybe we can talk about options for high-risk teachers, or ways we can relieve societal burden on parents if we do go to a staggered school schedule."

but that's not what we're doing.

in terms of what dan is saying, i think we need to think about reporting lag like this: "X deaths were reported. okay, from when? okay, that might make this week's average higher, but the trendline is in the right direction still." if that changes and we see something new emerge, then by all means, let's think of ways to act on it.

 

[GoofGoof]

i'll speak for myself and say that i do not believe i am trying to be "tricked."

in general, what i am concerned about is that here in the US, we are trying to have a national, real-time debate in the landscape with the following challenges:

- disjointed, non-uniform, and poorly-defined data
- crummy, lazy reporting
- agendas and/or confirmation bias directing virtually all parts of the discussion
- critical decisions based on potentially false premises

the idea is that no one wants their loved ones to die of this thing, right? then we need to understand what this *thing* is, and the only way to do that is to figure out when it hit us the hardest, why it could or could not be changing, who is at risk, and how we operate.

we're just not doing that, and this thread is pretty instructive on how we get bogged down in our own worldviews

I agree with this. It’s a national tragedy that this whole pandemic has become so political. The country should be unified in our support of the government and the recommendations of the experts instead of constantly fighting everything that doesn’t fit “some agenda”. In times of war and national emergency with a true threat to the country we as a nation have always found ways to put differences aside and rally around the cause at least during the initial phase when the threat still hasn‘t been neutralized. That’s not happening.

I agree 100% that nobody wants their loved ones to die. I also agree we need to understand the virus better and there are experts in the field of epidemiology and infectious disease that are working on that round the clock. We as a people need to trust them when they do draw conclusions or make recommendations instead of dismissing them if they don’t say something that fits our narratives. Right now the CDC, the federal task force and the state and local departments of health are making their recommendations based on the best information they have on this specific virus and also on how similar respiratory viruses tend to spread. It’s not realistic to say we should do nothing or not act until we have full scientific studies that are peer reviewed and published to back the recommendations. We can’t wait to act and I feel like sometimes a lack of definitive overwhelming evidence is used as an excuse to try to discount preventive measures that are put in place.

Measures are put in place today based on the best information we have but as this research into the virus continues we should welcome updates from the experts instead of belittling them for being wrong in the past. I’ve seen too many people cling to this notion that we can’t trust the WHO because they were wrong about something in January or Fauci for recommending no masks in March and then changing the recommendation in April. That’s a short sighted way to think. We should all embrace further research and updating of best practices instead of using a change in recommendations as an excuse to discount that person or organization‘s recommendations going forward. Again, I think it’s being used as a convenient excuse to not follow a recommendation that some people just don’t want to have to follow.

Just my 2 cents. We really are all in this together and I do believe that the vast majority of people are not that far different in our overall thinking.

 

[Casper Gutman]

that is not at all what i'm saying. we obviously are acting without facts being 100% clear. i'm saying when we get NEW facts, we can't ignore them because they contradict the old information we had.

take masks. there is a huge push back on masks in this country in part because the government, doctors, public health officials, etc. spent months saying they weren't effective and not to wear them. okay. now they say wear them. okay. that's cool. if you found new information that it is absolutely stopping the spread, i'm in.

now let's do schools. in march, we were petrified for our children. i was. didn't matter what the CDC told us about vulnerable populations. now we have five months at data that show MIS-C is extremely rare and virtually all kids that are infected recover; that they're at a far higher risk to other viral illnesses than COVID-19. what's more, it seems that almost all countries that re-opened schools shortly after their peaks saw that schools make no meaningful difference in spread. we can't just respond to that by saying, "whatever, politician X wants to kill our kids." even if you don't the POTUS or the secretary of education (which, personally, i do not). maybe it's more productive to think, "hm. maybe we can talk about options for high-risk teachers, or ways we can relieve societal burden on parents if we do go to a staggered school schedule."

but that's not what we're doing.

in terms of what dan is saying, i think we need to think about reporting lag like this: "X deaths were reported. okay, from when? okay, that might make this week's average higher, but the trendline is in the right direction still." if that changes and we see something new emerge, then by all means, let's think of ways to act on it.

This is generally reasonable, I think.

But I don’t see how the lag in reporting makes the trend line more favorable. It means that the count in more recent days is vastly lower then reality. I am not a mathematician (surprise) but it seems that, if the lag remains steady - let’s say, 20% from a month ago, 60% from two weeks ago, 20% from yesterday - then rising REPORTED numbers, despite the lag, indicate a steady rise in negative outcomes. That only seems to change if the nature of the lag changes. It just means the rise was worse then we thought a few weeks ago, and we really need to act right now.

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong.

 

[oceanbreeze77]

HKDL is trending.....because of WDW being open.

 

[DCBaker]

 

[oceanbreeze77]

oh so he's like....serious

 

[Andrew C]

So, how is this enforced? I drive my car with an out of state plate and they pull me over? Also, this is legal? They will make people register?

 

[Heppenheimer]

take masks. there is a huge push back on masks in this country in part because the government, doctors, public health officials, etc. spent months saying they weren't effective and not to wear them. okay. now they say wear them.

That is not true at all. They spent maybe two weeks discouraging generalized mask use as in individual preventative method for the wearer. They now encourage mask use. There are a few reasons why this change was made:

1) At the time of the original recommendation, case numbers in the US were in the hundreds, not the millions like today. Any individual's chance of contracting the virus at that time was fairly low.

2) PPE supplies had not yet reached "surge" levels. They did not want to cause a rush on limited mask supplies, when social distancing, track and tracing and quarantines of known cases would have provided better protection, if this is what had actually be done. If you doubt there would have been a run on masks, remember how hard it was to get toilet paper in March and April.

3) The viral burden is now known to be highest before the patient even feels sick. This was not known until early May, by which time the recommendation had changed anyway.

4) The recommendation that masks don't protect the wearer has not changed. But because we now know that people can be extremely contagious before they even feel sick, and the virus has a much higher prevalence in the general population (4 orders of magnitude greater prevalence, actually), the emphasis is now on wearing masks to prevent the wearer from inadvertently spreading the disease.

 

[xdan0920]

This is generally reasonable, I think.

But I don’t see how the lag in reporting makes the trend line more favorable. It means that the count in more recent days is vastly lower then reality. I am not a mathematician (surprise) but it seems that, if the lag remains steady - let’s say, 20% from a month ago, 60% from two weeks ago, 20% from yesterday - then rising REPORTED numbers, despite the lag, indicate a steady rise in negative outcomes. That only seems to change if the nature of the lag changes. It just means the rise was worse then we thought a few weeks ago, and we really need to act right now.

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong.

The nature of the lag changed.

 

[brb1006]

After learning how Disney's handling the characters and social distancing at the Magic Kingdom (such as single floats, Country Bears standing on top the building, and Pooh characters on the trolley), and Animal Kingdom (Character Boats). They should finally revive/bring back the Character Double Decker Bus that used to travel around World Showcase at random. As seen in this video from 2004.

 

[baymenxpac]

That is not true at all. They spent maybe two weeks discouraging generalized mask use as in individual preventative method for the wearer. They now encourage mask use. There are a few reasons why this change was made:

1) At the time of the original recommendation, case numbers in the US were in the hundreds, not the millions like today. Any individual's chance of contracting the virus at that time was fairly low.

2) PPE supplies had not yet reached "surge" levels. They did not want to cause a rush on limited mask supplies, when social distancing, track and tracing and quarantines of known cases would have provided better protection, if this is what had actually be done. If you doubt there would have been a run on masks, remember how hard it was to get toilet paper in March and April.

3) The viral burden is now known to be highest before the patient even feels sick. This was not known until early May, by which time the recommendation had changed anyway.

4) The recommendation that masks don't protect the wearer has not changed. But because we now know that people can be extremely contagious before they even feel sick, and the virus has a much higher prevalence in the general population (4 orders of magnitude greater prevalence, actually), the emphasis is now on wearing masks to prevent the wearer from inadvertently spreading the disease.

no, no, no. i'm sorry, you can't say something "isn't true" and then offer reasons why public health officials said not to wear them, which has nothing to do with their corresponding claims of effectiveness. public health officials said they don't want a run on them when it's healthcare workers that need them....because they're not effective for the general public.

why are we so quick to just revise history?

i wear a mask. i don't particularly care. you can easily go find old posts and see me asking people to wear a mask. i'm not some dude yelling at costco. but let's not pretend to understand why some people are confused. even if we bold words, it doesn't change the fact that WHO, CDC, dr. fauci, the surgeon general, dr. sanjay gupta, and many, many other doctors on every single news station across the country said that they won't protect you, so don't wear one and take them away from healthcare workers who have them properly fitted to make them effective and need them to treat the sick.

again, not a hill i'm willing to die on, but also not super stoked about a claim i'm being dishonest when everyone has a memory (or a twitter account) where we can just go back 4 months and see what was actually happening.

 

[BrianLo]

There was a clear set of guidelines on a litany of measures that needed to be followed to re-open safely. Almost none of them have been followed as per those original guidelines.

But there was a lot of solace taken in the fact that deaths continued to decline, even if the overall cases in the US had mostly plateaued.

Unfortunately what we are finding is deaths are an extremely poor day to day indicator of how to make decisions. The reopening phases always had "at least deaths are declining" as a backup. Now that we are seeing all these backdated cases it seems the trend-line may actually approximate the cases. When the US plateau'd deaths remained plateau'd. Now that the US is rising deaths are likely rising and it will be months and months to see that all in retrospect.

I do understand the overall point posters are trying to make, but it reaches the opposite conclusion. This is actually worse news that reporting of deaths are lagging so much. Since that was the metric supporting reopening and it is now proven incorrect. Bad decisions have been made since April and the data is now appearing to support that.

The best metric to make decisions may simply be rising number of cases, since they have the least amount of lag. Feels like coming around full circle.

 

[DisneyDebRob]

So, how is this enforced? I drive my car with an out of state plate and they pull me over? Also, this is legal? They will make people register?

When Delaware had a quarantine for people from Pennsylvania, you were allowed to drive through. There were signs on 95 saying any out of state plates to keep moving. If you stopped for a coffee or anything else, they could then confront you. Have no idea if it’s the same thing in NY but I guess they don’t want out of staters just stopping for breakfast or whatever.

 

[Andrew C]

When Delaware had a quarantine for people from Pennsylvania, you were allowed to drive through. There were signs on 95 saying any out of state plates to keep moving. If you stopped for a coffee or anything else, they could then confront you. Have no idea if it’s the same thing in NY but I guess they don’t want out of staters just stopping for breakfast or whatever.

Confront you and do what?

 

[Casper Gutman]

The nature of the lag changed.

Interesting. Source?

 

[baymenxpac]

There was a clear set of guidelines on a litany of measures that needed to be followed to re-open safely. Almost none of them have been followed as per those original guidelines.

But there was a lot of solace taken in the fact that deaths continued to decline, even if the overall cases in the US had mostly plateaued.

Unfortunately what we are finding is deaths are an extremely poor day to day indicator of how to make decisions. The reopening phases always had "at least deaths are declining" as a backup. Now that we are seeing all these backdated cases it seems the trend-line may actually approximate the cases. When the US plateau'd deaths remained plateau'd. Now that the US is rising deaths are likely rising and it will be months and months to see that all in retrospect.

I do understand the overall point posters are trying to make, but it reaches the opposite conclusion. This is actually worse news that reporting of deaths are lagging so much. Since that was the metric supporting reopening and it is now proven incorrect. Bad decisions have been made since April and the data is now appearing to support that.

The best metric to make decisions may simply be rising number of cases, since they have the least amount of lag. Feels like coming around full circle.

just so everyone knows (and brian knows this), i very much respect his opinion, especially since it's a very, very well informed one. we've gone back and forth on this a little bit.

i agree largely with it not being much to take solace in, with the caveat that we have to look at state-by-state at how the lag affects that state's individual curve, how it lines up with re-opening (which was done haphazardly in many of the southern states), and what we can glean. i haven't done that, so i'm not going to pretend i have.

i still think cases are a flawed indicator, but who knows. still lots to learn on this.

 

[xdan0920]

Interesting. Source?

The chart that’s already been quoted twice. Here let me show you.

Look at the highlighted area. See anything odd? Huge jumps in lagged deaths. That’s not normal.

 

[schuelma]

I do understand the overall point posters are trying to make, but it reaches the opposite conclusion. This is actually worse news that reporting of deaths are lagging so much. Since that was the metric supporting reopening and it is now proven incorrect. Bad decisions have been made since April and the data is now appearing to support that.

Exactly.

 

[GoofGoof]

Confront you and do what?

Fines. It was a big deal because the PA liquor stores closed and people from the county that borders Delaware were driving in to buy booze. They had cops waiting in the parking lot for PA drivers. You got a ticket if you stopped. I have a friend and his brother went to University of Delaware so still had Delaware plates on his car. He was doing liquor runs into Delaware for half his neighborhood.