Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[Heppenheimer]

How is it that in 4+ months we haven’t figured out how to ramp up production on test kits and we haven’t expanded labs enough? Why are there still shortages of PPE?

Because we ramped up to meet the demands of four months ago... but we didn't take the necessary steps to keep the case numbers at those levels.

And because, you know... someone has to coordinate all of this at a national level. Hasn't happened either.

 

[disneygeek90]

That’s unacceptable. Instead of fighting about stupid semantics around statistics we should all be unified in demanding that our government does better. How is it that in 4+ months we haven’t figured out how to ramp up production on test kits and we haven’t expanded labs enough? Why are there still shortages of PPE? Why can’t I find a disinfectant wipe anywhere? There’s got to be a better way to attack this.

I gave up trying to find wipes. I was at a CVS the other day and I couldn’t believe my eyes, there were finally antibacterial wipes available. 4 months later.

 

[GoofGoof]

How is it that in 4+ months we haven’t figured out how to ramp up production on test kits and we haven’t expanded labs enough? Why are there still shortages of PPE?

Because we ramped up to meet the demands of four months ago... but we didn't take the necessary steps to keep the case numbers at those levels.

And because, you know... someone has to coordinate all of this at a national level. Hasn't happened either.

There should have been a federal response on testing where they ramped up federal resources that could be deployed strategically wherever needed. It makes no sense to rely on each state to independently ramp up and then also create excess capacity in case it’s needed. Each state should be providing a base level of testing with the federal response filling in the excess gaps. You hit a hot spot with pop up testing sites and mobile labs, test like hell and get ahead of the outbreak then move on to the next hot spot. Instead states like FL are floundering with inadequate available testing and even more importantly not enough lab capacity.

 

[Heppenheimer]

There should have been a federal response on testing where they ramped up federal resources that could be deployed strategically wherever needed. It makes no sense to rely on each state to independently ramp up and then also create excess capacity in case it’s needed. Each state should be providing a base level of testing with the federal response filling in the excess gaps. You hit a hot spot with pop up testing sites and mobile labs, test like hell and get ahead of the outbreak then move on to the next hot spot. Instead states like FL are floundering with inadequate available testing and even more importantly not enough lab capacity.

Strategic allocation of national assets. Its one of those things that we should always expect of a certain branch of government.

 

[xdan0920]

No country in the world is testing nearly at the levels we are. There’s always a lot of talk about how Europe has done so much better then us. One thing they haven’t done is test at these crazy levels.

Now don’t bite my head off, this is purely conjecture on my part, but it makes some sense.

Maybe we are testing too many people. Maybe we should be doing much more targeted testing, rather then testing 700-800 thousand people a day. We are capturing a staggering amount of not sick people, and it’s hurting 1. accuracy of testing. And 2. The timing of results.

Perhaps a more focused approach is the way to go.

 

[Heppenheimer]

No country in the world is testing nearly at the levels we are. There’s always a lot of talk about how Europe has done so much better then us. One thing they haven’t done is test at these crazy levels.

Now don’t bite my head off, this is purely conjecture on my part, but it makes some sense.

Maybe we are testing too many people. Maybe we should be doing much more targeted testing, rather then testing 700-800 thousand people a day. We are capturing a staggering amount of not sick people, and it’s hurting 1. accuracy of testing. And 2. The timing of results.

Perhaps a more focused approach is the way to go.

We're testing far more people because the disease is not controlled here. It largely is in most of Europe.

 

[October82]

No country in the world is testing nearly at the levels we are. There’s always a lot of talk about how Europe has done so much better then us. One thing they haven’t done is test at these crazy levels.

What matters for testing is not the raw number of tests, but the rate at which you are detecting cases. The way this is measured is through the test positivity rate. That number indicates that many parts of the US are still under testing by (conservatively) a factor of 4-5.

Now don’t bite my head off, this is purely conjecture on my part, but it makes some sense.

Maybe we are testing too many people. Maybe we should be doing much more targeted testing, rather then testing 700-800 thousand people a day. We are capturing a staggering amount of not sick people, and it’s hurting 1. accuracy of testing. And 2. The timing of results.

Perhaps a more focused approach is the way to go.

There's no way to do targeted testing of a virus that has a long incubation period and many asymptomatic people. The way to improve the rate of testing is to do pooled testing, but this only works if the number of infected people is small enough compared to the number of tests.

 

[xdan0920]

We're testing far more people because the disease is not controlled here. It largely is in most of Europe.

Ok.

 

[polynesiangirl]

That’s unacceptable. Instead of fighting about stupid semantics around statistics we should all be unified in demanding that our government does better. How is it that in 4+ months we haven’t figured out how to ramp up production on test kits and we haven’t expanded labs enough? Why are there still shortages of PPE? Why can’t I find a disinfectant wipe anywhere? There’s got to be a better way to attack this.

I was just saying something similar the other day re: disinfectant wipes. I bought two containers right before things started closing in mid-March. Since then, I have put a request for one container in every single grocery store order I have placed since then (so like, every week or two.) They have had them in stock when filling my order ONCE. Now, I haven't been stalking every place around me constantly or anything, but I've looked at other stores' stocks online periodically and only once saw a store with a few in stock but it was almost 45 minutes away from my home. Everywhere else has been consistently sold out. Like, four-plus MONTHS into this and they're STILL available almost nowhere? How?? And the lag in testing, which seems to be pretty widespread, is so, so disappointing. It's exactly as some have said here: if it takes 7+ days to get results, we're going to see people either giving up and going out before getting their results, or not bothering to get tested at all.

My husband and I were talking last night about how to go about planning for a future vacation (we have DVC points and a mountain of credits on various airlines right now, so I'm just sort of keeping the various expiration dates etc in the back of my mind.) We had two Disney-related trips planned for this year, both of which had to be canceled. It was hard to believe as we were having this discussion that here we are almost in August now and I still don't have a good feel for when we'll be ready to travel again, and where we'll be willing to go when we do/what we'll feel comfortable doing (or even what will be available to do, and when). With the continued challenges the country is facing with testing and tracing and getting basic supplies and just getting a chunk of people to take it even slightly seriously, it feels like this is never going to end.

 

[hopemax]

update on my test from last Friday (the 10): still no results.

That's crazy. Our friends were tested Tuesday, and got their result on Friday/Saturday. My Dad tried to figure out how to get a test at the Centra Care closest to him, and didn't get anywhere, so he found out from our friends where they went. That place, he just had to show up, fill out paperwork and then he got his nose swabs. I'm hoping he will get his results by the end of the week or sooner.

 

[GoofGoof]

No country in the world is testing nearly at the levels we are. There’s always a lot of talk about how Europe has done so much better then us. One thing they haven’t done is test at these crazy levels.

Now don’t bite my head off, this is purely conjecture on my part, but it makes some sense.

Maybe we are testing too many people. Maybe we should be doing much more targeted testing, rather then testing 700-800 thousand people a day. We are capturing a staggering amount of not sick people, and it’s hurting 1. accuracy of testing. And 2. The timing of results.

Perhaps a more focused approach is the way to go.

We are doing more testing but we also have more cases. Putting the political talking points aside you can’t fake hospitalizations or deaths, we have more cases. if we were doing too much testing the percent positive would be real low, like below 1% low. It’s not most places.

More focused testing is fine. But right now we can’t even get the people tested who want/need to be tested. After you cover all the people who either have symptoms or have reason to believe they were exposed you can and should do a more targeted set of random testing based on suspected areas of infection. That would be to prevent a hot spot from popping up in the first place. Based on contact tracing and known cases you target locations and/or demographics that seem to have the potential to spike. Right now in a lot of the country we are in catch up mode with testing.

 

[gmajew]

People keep flipping out that the daily positive totals are so big.... And how it is so much worse then New York etc....

NY tested on April 11th 23,095 people with a positives being 10,575. Think about that when daily Florida is testing 90K+.... So by any logic when you test more you will see more people with it..... So NY numbers were never fully reported due to lack of test.... So is it really as bad as everyone is making it out to be? Or is this just the normal curve of the diseases when it hits any area? Heck looking back at it days of 5-10K positives would make us thrilled and we be saying NY rocked it... but we all know that is not the case.

 

[gmajew]

We are doing more testing but we also have more cases. Putting the political talking points aside you can’t fake hospitalizations or deaths, we have more cases. if we were doing too much testing the percent positive would be real low, like below 1% low. It’s not most places.

More focused testing is fine. But right now we can’t even get the people tested who want/need to be tested. After you cover all the people who either have symptoms or have reason to believe they were exposed you can and should do a more targeted set of random testing based on suspected areas of infection. That would be to prevent a hot spot from popping up in the first place. Based on contact tracing and known cases you target locations and/or demographics that seem to have the potential to spike. Right now in a lot of the country we are in catch up mode with testing.

Who is not getting a test? Because in Ohio, Illinois people are getting tested with ease....

 

[GoofGoof]

Who is not getting a test? Because in Ohio, Illinois people are getting tested with ease....

Go back a page or 2. There’s someone who was tested in FL and has waited over a week for results. Not good. There are also lines at a lot of the testing sites. Not everyone can or wants to wait for hours. Percent positive is a metric that measures whether enough testing is being done. With the percent positive over 10% and consistently closer to 15% there’s not enough testing. If/when that drops below 5% again then we can say that they are doing a good job on testing.

here‘s one story on it from USA Today

'Pushing the frontiers': Long lines for COVID tests, stressed labs delay results as demand spikes

COVID-19 test results are delayed a week or longer in hotspot communities, undercutting public health efforts to track, isolate and prevent spread.

www.usatoday.com

 

[gmajew]

Go back a page or 2. There’s someone who was tested in FL and has waited over a week for results. Not good. There are also lines at a lot of the testing sites. Not everyone can or wants to wait for hours. Percent positive is a metric that measures whether enough testing is being done. With the percent positive over 10% and consistently closer to 15% there’s not enough testing. If/when that drops below 5% again then we can say that they are doing a good job on testing.

Yeah but is the the norm or reg for length to get results..... I know in Ohio this week I got 50 employees tested and had results back in 24 hours for all of them.

 

[October82]

People keep flipping out that the daily positive totals are so big.... And how it is so much worse then New York etc....

NY tested on April 11th 23,095 people with a positives being 10,575. Think about that when daily Florida is testing 90K+.... So by any logic when you test more you will see more people with it..... So NY numbers were never fully reported due to lack of test.... So is it really as bad as everyone is making it out to be?

Different numbers measure different things. The total case numbers, for instance, are important to know because there are fixed resources like ICU and hospital beds that don't change. If the total case number gets large enough, hospitals are no longer able to treat patients. The positivity rate measures how the number of tests being done compares to the number of people infected. All of these things indicate that there is community spread.

Or is this just the normal curve of the diseases when it hits any area? Heck looking back at it days of 5-10K positives would make us thrilled and we be saying NY rocked it... but we all know that is not the case.

We should be really clear that there is no "normal curve" of the disease. This is a highly transmissible respiratory infection that will rapidly spread if left unchecked. What all of these numbers indicate is really how effective the public health response is.

 

[GoofGoof]

Yeah but is the the norm or reg for length to get results..... I know in Ohio this week I got 50 employees tested and had results back in 24 hours for all of them.

I suppose it could all be fake news. When the governor says it’s a problem on the record in a press conference I tend to believe it but who knows, these days anything is possible.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article244251047.html

 

[gmajew]

I suppose it could all be fake news. When the governor says it’s a problem on the record in a press conference I tend to believe it but who knows, these days anything is possible.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article244251047.html

I am not saying anything is fake news.... I am not in Florida to know for sure.... Living it in the states I am in.

 

[willtravel]

Yeah but is the the norm or reg for length to get results..... I know in Ohio this week I got 50 employees tested and had results back in 24 hours for all of them.

Were they ill or you just decide to have them tested?

 

[Heppenheimer]

Yeah but is the the norm or reg for length to get results..... I know in Ohio this week I got 50 employees tested and had results back in 24 hours for all of them.

Here in Vermont, we usually get our test results back within 48 hours, most often within 24. But part of the reason is because the system hasn't been overstretched. The testing tent at hour hospital probably sees only about 20 people a day.