Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[ABQ]

Umm, no. I'm not from NY, but I do want to visit FL in the near future, and I'd rather the state go all-out to vaccinate everyone eligible and get their numbers as low as possible. Because my kids can't get vaccinated yet, I'll spend my tourist dollars elsewhere for now.

That's fine, but has nothing to do with the point I was making about the NY Times and what they would like to report.

 

[havoc315]

Good analysis. thanks.

Have you read any thoughts on why the Maldives is going through a large spike right now in spite of being one of the world leaders in vaccination rate (57.7% with 1 dose, 29.8% completed, but 7-day case average has gone from 91 in mid-April to 1626 by today).

I don't know enough about the situation in the Maldives.
Most notably -- what vaccine are they using? They rely on Covax, so it's probably mostly Astra Zeneca.
What level of natural immunity did they acquire?
And how recently did they ramp up vaccination, as there will be lag time.
What variants are dominant -- For example, Astrazeneca is only about 33% effective after 1 shot as to the India variant. So easy to see how you would get a spike with 70% of the population having 33% or lower protection.
Basically, lots of factors at play.

 

[havoc315]

Masking does not really prevent catching Covid, it only helps prevent the spread. So only a person with Covid needs the mask; if you are vaccinated it is likely redundant and useless.

Yes and no.
First off, for unvaccinated people -- Masks work in both directions. If the infected person is wearing a mask, it reduces spread. If the healthy person is masked, it helps prevent getting infected. The incidence of infection going from masked person to masked person is EXTREMELY low.
For vaccinated people --- masks are far far less important. They definitely are mostly redundant, but not entirely. You could say seatbelts are redundant if your car has airbags.
The Yankee spread to 9 people would not have happened if they were masked.
Kids still are not vaccinated.

Now, certainly, if everyone was vaccinated, I'd see no reason to wear masks. Events like the Yankee "super spreader" breakthrough would indeed be very rare, and would be mostly asymptomatic.

But there is indeed strong value in keeping unvaccinated people masked.

 

[SamusAranX]

He is not making that assertion by himself. Read the actual story before you allow social media to feed you a bit of information and you run with it as gospel. They are still not sure what happened. It could have been made in a lab and then broke containment, or it could have developed naturally and then spread by people trying to get it under control, etc. They are still not sure. No one has ever flat out concrete said where it came from. It is not a flip-flop. And that is all I am going to say on this because I refuse to get into an online argument anymore.

I don't think it was a flip flop either, but overall, for most of the pandemic it's been the consensus that the pandemic originated naturally. Now we have different suspicions. Which is ironic, because if you subscribed to said theories a year ago you were considered a conspiracy nutjob.

 

[SamusAranX]

Let's also not forget that there's a massive difference between "created in a lab and escaped" and "occurred naturally, but escaped a lab while being studied".

Absolutely. But China was adamant that it originated in nature, (the wet market theory), as well as WHO, etc. and many were indeed mocked for thinking otherwise. I am glad Fauci is open minded about it, but it doesn't make it [him now accepting it as a valid theory] any less surprising

 

[AmesTARDIS]

Fauci is a scientist. His opinions change based on the information he has available to him. Amazing, a person who is able to change his point of view.

Imagine living a life where you never change your opinion on anything, ever. Or admit you were wrong.

This is so important to keep in mind. Early on, I remember the WHO and CDC offering advice that I knew would likely change with time. But, many people listening, did not understand that the situation was fluid, and information was being updated rapidly. They were doing the best that they had with the information available at that time. A few months later, a lot of people I know began questioning the reliability of both organizations. And, I understand that. People were scared. But, ultimately, many simply decided that neither organization knew what they were talking about.

 

[correcaminos]

I blaim being on vacation, but I did Google and it only came back with 5%.

Anyway, same answer. A less effective vaccine means bad things can happen against a highly transmissible, novel infectious disease. And it indicates that the actual herd immunity threshold is above 58% (vax + natural).

No worries, sometimes googling fails us.

A less effective vaccine makes math much harder to decide on. Especially if the single dose is lower as well. Admittedly I know little about both vaccines used and not as sure of even covishield/AZ against variants.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

Absolutely. But China was adamant that it originated in nature, (the wet market theory), as well as WHO, etc. and many were indeed mocked for thinking otherwise. I am glad Fauci is open minded about it, but it doesn't make it [him now accepting it as a valid theory] any less surprising

You can't automatically assume that "originating in nature" means that the wet market theory is correct. Originating in nature simply means that it was not a man-made virus...it occurred naturally.

The important thing we need to focus on is HOW the virus made the leap from animals to humans. Was it being studied in the lab and there was an accidental escape? OR did it somehow make it into the wet market via one animal and make the jump there via an intermediary animal?

Even further...it could have escaped the lab via an accident and wound up at the wet market.

One of the concerns surrounding the jump being made via an intermediary animal is that the intermediary animal hasn't been found. With MERS and SARS, one intermediary animal was found in one month and the other in either 3 or 4 months. If the wet market was the source, we still haven't found that intermediary animal yet.

 

[Willmark]

Let's also not forget that there's a massive difference between "created in a lab and escaped" and "occurred naturally, but escaped a lab while being studied".

Yes and some of us said very thing in several of the now closed threads on Covid .

Lets just say the responses on this site were…interesting.

 

[Disney Experience]

Good analysis. thanks.

Have you read any thoughts on why the Maldives is going through a large spike right now in spite of being one of the world leaders in vaccination rate (57.7% with 1 dose, 29.8% completed, but 7-day case average has gone from 91 in mid-April to 1626 by today).

I have not investigated, but possible factors in why vaccine rate is not decreasing cases in the last month in that country:

Ramadan. ( though that should have ended) I do not know how that impacts the R factor.

AstraZeneca (Covshield) vaccine with most only having one shot. This would not be a reason for an increase, but it may explain why it is not decreasing in that time period.

Are they testing more?

Have they changed other mitigating factors?

Edit: Just noticed @havoc315 responded already with similar reasoning.

 

[Parker in NYC]

Yes and some of us said very thing in several of the now closed threads on Covid .

Lets just say the responses on this site were…interesting.

Oh, please.

 

[Yodascousin]

Some notes on international observations:

Israel: Cases are now stagnating at an incredibly low number: 7 day rolling average is 29 case per day, that's 0.3 cases per 100,000.
They have vaccinated over 80% of adults, AND they still require indoor masks. They have dropped most other restrictions.
If anything, this is a demonstration of the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine PLUS indoor masking.
Their 7-day rolling average of deaths has actually "spiked" -- It was down to just 1 death per day, it's back up to 2 for now. (Of course, many of those deaths may be lagging reports).
They will likely drop indoor masks once kids are widely vaccinated.
Israel is a 9 million person country, about the size and population of NJ. Per capita, if compared to the US, it would be as if the US was having about 60 deaths per day and 957 cases per day. Yes -- with the proper measures, this thing can be driven down to near zero.

UK is an interesting analysis. They have distributed vaccine at a slightly higher level than the US. They chose a different approach: delay the second shot, but distribute the first shot as widely as possible. They are still more age limited than the US, but qualifying age groups are adopting vaccination at rates of 90%+. While Israel relied exclusively on Pfizer, about 1/3rd of the UK population has received the Astra Zeneca vaccine (more than half of those vaccinated, have been vaxed with Astra Zeneca). While effective, studies have repeatedly shown Astra Zeneca is noticeably less effective, especially against newer variants.
Anyway, receiving at least 1 dose:
UK: 57%
US: 44.7%
Israel: 60.1%

And even more than Israel, UK has kept significant Covid restrictions in place. So based purely on first doses and restrictions, you'd expect the UK to be doing as well as Israel. But the reality is a bit more complicated:
Cases per day in the UK: They were under 2000 per day in early May, but since then, they have actually risen: Now 2600 per day. This is still a fairly low number, but represents 4 cases per 100,000. That's much closer to the 7.6 per 100,000 of the US than the 0.3 of Israel.
More notably, it's the same level as mid April: They have not seen any decline in cases in the last 5-6 weeks.
So what's happening in the UK?
1 -- They are NOT at herd immunity. They have plenty of vaccine suppression driving down numbers significantly, but clearly it's not herd immunity.
2 -- Astra Zeneca simply isn't as effective. The India variant is becoming prevalent in the UK. Both Pfizer and Astra Zeneca only provide 33% protection after the first dose. After 2 doses, Pfizer is 93% effective against the UK variant and 88% against the India variant. Astra Zeneca is only 60% effective against the India variant and 66% against the UK variant.
So to some degree, the continued sustained cases in the UK may be due to simply using a less effective vaccine -- much like the Yankees staff developed 9 positive cases even though they were fully vaxed.. but with the less effective JNJ.
3 -- Continuation of the same point -- As I said, especially against the India variant, 2 doses provide a LOT more protection than just 1 dose. Only 34% of the UK has 2 doses, compared to 39% in the US and 57% in Israel.

Now the good news for UK: While relying heavily on 1-dose of Astrazeneca compared to 2 doses of Pfizer, has led to a more sustained case level, it has been VERY effective against death. This is also due to the fact that UK is vaccinating over 90% of qualifying age groups, over 95% of seniors. Running about 10 points ahead of the US. In late January, they were averaging 1241 deaths per day -- Almost 2 deaths per 100,000 people per day. Their 7 day average is down to 6! That's 0.009 deaths per 100,000 per day.
The US: Late January, we were at 34670 deaths per day: About 1.05 deaths per 100,000 people. We are down to 543, about 0.16 per 100,000 per day. So US went from a death rate higher than the US, to a death rate much much lower.
So why has the UK been SO SUCCESSFUL at preventing death, even with a sustained case level? Because they have near universal vaccination of those over 50, and even 1 shot is providing protection against death.

Some lessons for the US:
We want to get to the herd immunity level of Israel, where we have under 1,000 cases per day, nationwide. We want to get to the death level seen in Israel and the UK: Where death has become exceedingly rare.

1. Sadly, the ship has sailed, but we would have benefited from keeping indoor mask mandates and vaccine passports.
2. The JNJ scare may have been a blessing in disguise in the US. Any vaccine is better than no vaccine. But as long as Moderna and Pfizer are widely available, they will provide superior protection to JNJ/Astrazeneca.
Let's say you need 80% immunity for true herd immunity: A vaccine that is "only" 60-70% effective will never provide 80% community immunity, even if everyone is fulled vaxed. So to the extent that the US is relying more on Pfizer and Moderna, it could help us potentially follow Israel's path more than the UK path, in terms of cases.
3. If we really want to quickly drive down cases as much as both the UK and Israel, we need greater vaccine adoption. We have 85% of seniors with at least 1 dose and 74% with 2 doses. Those numbers sound good, but UK and Israel is looking at 95%+ in those age brackets.
And we drop off in the 50-65 far more than they do.

I'm optimistic that we will largely squash Covid. But at our current rate, there will be another winter spike in low vax communities. Likely no where near as big and dangerous as the winter 2020-2021 spike. But there should be higher vax communities where Covid nearly disappears.

Just to add a bit more information to this about the uk our slight increase in cases is down to specific areas of the population where vaccine hesitancy is at its highest in certain demographics which travelled back from India to the uk to avoid hotel quarantine...then travelling back into areas of lower vaccine uptake caused a mini surge in those areas, thankfully recent data shows that these surges have peaked and are beginning to fall again, both the vaccines we have Astra and Pfizer both seem to be doing well against the variant so I Don’t think our surge was due to Astra being less effective but due to the fact that the people catching it were not vaccinated at all!! Plus as you say deaths are now minimal here thankfully which in reality is what it’s all about so whatever vaccine is on offer around the world get jabbed!! It literally will save your life

 

[mmascari]

Yes and some of us said very thing in several of the now closed threads on Covid .

Lets just say the responses on this site were…interesting.

It's the verbiage and the implied meaning.

To pick on @SamusAranX

I don't think it was a flip flop either, but overall, for most of the pandemic it's been the consensus that the pandemic originated naturally. Now we have different suspicions. Which is ironic, because if you subscribed to said theories a year ago you were considered a conspiracy nutjob.

This post reads that "escaped from a lab" means it didn't "originated naturally". It's in effect saying that means it's not natural, which would imply that it's a man made. Other posts about "escaped from a lab" also tend to imply that it's a man made engineered virus. I don't think that's what was meant by this post, but that's how many of them read. That is down right conspiracy theory land.

We know:

• There's a lab there that studies this type of virus.
• Presumably, they acquired samples from the wild to study.
• We know the first cases originated near by.

So there's 3 possibilities:

1. A person was infected with the virus someplace nearby, perhaps the market, perhaps someplace else. Just random bad luck.
2. A person was infected with the virus while studying it in the lab. Some mistake in the procedures that are supposed to prevent this. Then spread it to someone else in public, perhaps at the market.
3. The government engineered the virus and some mistake exposed someone to it.
4. Just for extra credit, the government engineered the virus and deliberately exposed someone.

What's the practical difference at this point between 1 and 2? Is 2 any less "originated naturally" than 1?

While 3 and 4 are most definitely conspiracy theory land.

For anyone that thinks 2 just isn't possible, read up on lab accidents even in the US. People make mistakes. People try to coverup mistakes all the time, especially really big ones.

 

[Parker in NYC]

It's the verbiage and the implied meaning.

To pick on @SamusAranX

This post reads that "escaped from a lab" means it didn't "originated naturally". It's in effect saying that means it's not natural, which would imply that it's a man made. Other posts about "escaped from a lab" also tend to imply that it's a man made engineered virus. I don't think that's what was meant by this post, but that's how many of them read. That is down right conspiracy theory land.

We know:

• There's a lab there that studies this type of virus.
• Presumably, they acquired samples from the wild to study.
• We know the first cases originated near by.

So there's 3 possibilities:

1. A person was infected with the virus someplace nearby, perhaps the market, perhaps someplace else. Just random bad luck.
2. A person was infected with the virus while studying it in the lab. Some mistake in the procedures that are supposed to prevent this. Then spread it to someone else in public, perhaps at the market.
3. The government engineered the virus and some mistake exposed someone to it.
4. Just for extra credit, the government engineered the virus and deliberately exposed someone.

What's the practical difference at this point between 1 and 2? Is 2 any less "originated naturally" than 1?

It’s all to defend thorough and blatant inaction on the part of folks outside of China.

 

[SamusAranX]

It's the verbiage and the implied meaning.

To pick on @SamusAranX

This post reads that "escaped from a lab" means it didn't "originated naturally". It's in effect saying that means it's not natural, which would imply that it's a man made. Other posts about "escaped from a lab" also tend to imply that it's a man made engineered virus. I don't think that's what was meant by this post, but that's how many of them read. That is down right conspiracy theory land.

We know:

• There's a lab there that studies this type of virus.
• Presumably, they acquired samples from the wild to study.
• We know the first cases originated near by.

So there's 3 possibilities:

1. A person was infected with the virus someplace nearby, perhaps the market, perhaps someplace else. Just random bad luck.
2. A person was infected with the virus while studying it in the lab. Some mistake in the procedures that are supposed to prevent this. Then spread it to someone else in public, perhaps at the market.
3. The government engineered the virus and some mistake exposed someone to it.
4. Just for extra credit, the government engineered the virus and deliberately exposed someone.

What's the practical difference at this point between 1 and 2? Is 2 any less "originated naturally" than 1?

While 3 and 4 are most definitely conspiracy theory land.

For anyone that thinks 2 just isn't possible, read up on lab accidents even in the US. People make mistakes. People try to coverup mistakes all the time, especially really big ones.

Well, the words "didn't develop naturally" to me imply that it was man made. and those words are not mine, but CNN's on the report about Fauci's change of opinion.

To clarify my position, I lean more towards what you are describing. The virus was being studied in the lab. The only issue with that theory is it pushes causation back further; ok, if it was being studied, where the heck did the scientists find it, being that it's a novel virus? To me Occam's razor thinks the simplest is that not only did it escape from the lab, it originated too. But there is allowance for the case they found a small cluster naturally occurring, studied it, then it had an outbreak. But that would mean China knew about the virus before December, which they are denying recently. Also consider the unsettling question @ImperfectPixie astutely pointed out; where the heck is that intermediary animal?

But even if you subscribed to the above statements by you last year that aren't really in the realm of unrealistic (occurred naturally, studied, escaped from the lab) until recently, you were mocked, and even called xenophobic for suggesting so. And look how hard China is now fighting the latest reports. It's almost projection of sorts. They don't want blame, but then again, almost 99 percent of government's worldwide failed in some way or another this pandemic. Nobody wants to be blamed for millions of deaths. Can't say [no pun intended], that I do blame em' for feeling that way.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

Well, the words "didn't develop naturally" to me imply that it was man made. and those words are not mine, but CNN's on the report about Fauci's change of opinion.

To clarify my position, I lean more towards what you are describing. The virus was being studied in the lab. The only issue with that theory is it pushes causation back further; ok, if it was being studied, where the heck did the scientists find it, being that it's a novel virus? To me Occam's razor thinks the simplest is that not only did it escape from the lab, it originated too. But there is allowance for the case they found a small cluster naturally occurring, studied it, then it had an outbreak. But that would mean China knew about the virus before December, which they are denying recently. Also consider the unsettling question @ImperfectPixie astutely pointed out; where the heck is that intermediary animal?

But even if you subscribed to the above statements by you last year that aren't really in the realm of unrealistic (occurred naturally, studied, escaped from the lab) until recently, you were mocked, and even called xenophobic for suggesting so. And look how hard China is now fighting the latest reports. It's almost projection of sorts. They don't want blame, but then again, almost 99 percent of government's worldwide failed in some way or another this pandemic. Nobody wants to be blamed for millions of deaths. Can't say [no pun intended], that I do blame em' for feeling that way.

I seem to recall complaining about articles from multiple news sources that weren't clear enough last year when they wrote or said "originated from a lab"...because that could mean created (which some people took it to mean) or escaped.

 

[Epcotfan21]

Let's also not forget that there's a massive difference between "created in a lab and escaped" and "occurred naturally, but escaped a lab while being studied".

Created in a lab and escaped doesn't sound that far fetched. On the other hand, created in a lab and purposively escaped is where we get into crazy conspiracy theory and I consider to be idiotic.

 

[robhedin]

Let's also not forget that there's a massive difference between "created in a lab and escaped" and "occurred naturally, but escaped a lab while being studied".

There is a huge difference between those two, however Dr Fauci is raising the question that it was not created naturally... per CNN:

"Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Poynter Institute on May 11 that he wasn't totally convinced that Covid-19 developed naturally" -

That said, there's a big difference between saying "it's possible this was not natural" and "this was definitely made in a lab".

So many people people have died and so much of the world society has changed we're trying to find some place to put the blame.

But I doubt that we'll ever know with 100% confidence if it was lab made.

 

[Willmark]

It’s all to defend thorough and blatant inaction on the part of folks outside of China.

It is? Who said that?

 

[ImperfectPixie]

There is a huge difference between those two, however Dr Fauci is raising the question that it was not created naturally... per CNN:

"Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Poynter Institute on May 11 that he wasn't totally convinced that Covid-19 developed naturally" -

That said, there's a big difference between saying "it's possible this was not natural" and "this was definitely made in a lab".

So many people people have died and so much of the world society has changed we're trying to find some place to put the blame.

But I doubt that we'll ever know with 100% confidence if it was lab made.

Absolutely to the bolded...huge difference. I have 2 big questions...first, we now know that the original document claiming that they knew 100% that the virus occurred naturally was all based on assumptions and that there are many holes in the claims. But, I think I remember seeing outside specialists agreeing that the virus wasn't manipulated in any way and that they could tell as much from the molecular structure of the virus or some such thing...where are those outsiders now? Question #2 is what happened to the (I think) 2 doctors who were trying to raise the alarm at the very beginning but then disappeared?

China doesn't want to admit it, but they are at the very least partially responsible for the pandemic - regardless of where and how the first infections took place. And I agree that we'll never likely know with confidence how the pandemic began unless by some miracle China decides to accept the role they played and is honest with us or we finally find the intermediary animal.