Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[GoofGoof]

For how long Israel did it. They utilized vaccine passports for a couple of months.... They kept the indoor mask mandate as cases drop below 0.2 per 100,000. Now, they have mostly lifted the passport requirements, they will likely soon lift the indoor mask mandate.

Had we taken the same measures, we probably would be getting similar results right now.

The article I posted a page ago they talked about the benefits and pitfalls of using vaccine passports:

4. Green passes

Green passes, certificates given to people who are vaccinated or who recovered from COVID-19, proved highly effective in opening up the Israeli economy, said Davidovitch.

He called them a “very important tool,” suggesting that they were deployed well, as an entrance requirement for sporting events, cultural venues, restaurants and other locations — allowing an accelerated reopening of such places — but not for day-to-day essential services like supermarkets and public transportation.

He said that even in Israel, where the government didn’t run publicity campaigns trying to leverage the green pass to encourage vaccination, anti-vaxxers claimed that green passes were being used to put undue pressure on people to vaccinate.

Given that anti-vaxxers are few in number in Israel this should serve as a warning to other countries, where the anti-vaccination lobby is stronger, to avoid the temptation to use green passes to propel vaccination campaigns.

“I think the green pass was a very important tool, but I didn’t think it should be leverage for people to be vaccinated,” Davidovitch said.

Lesson from Israel to the world: Give green passes when vaccination gets underway, but don’t use them as leverage in inoculation campaigns.

I think this highlights why the US didn’t go down this route. The author’s opinion is that the passports played a key role in allowing Israel to re-open their economy and end their lockdown but even in a culture where there’s less “resistance” they still were not a good motivator for vaccinations. In the US we have more people that would have resisted. I also think it’s important to note that the passports were a short term solution to end lockdowns not something used to “punish“ the unvaccinated.

 

[havoc315]

It's only eradicating it in Israel, which is great for Israel.

Eventually, borders will open and the world will still be dealing with the outbreaks.

Of course. Just like measles. But those outbreaks can be quickly quashed with appropriate testing and contract tracing. Just like we occasionally get a measles outbreak.

 

[mattpeto]

While true somewhat, if a high percentage of people are vaccinated those outbreaks will be very small. It's a big reason I am not worried about it happening much here in Canada. The way vaccinations are going there is a good chance we hit 80% vaccinated here.

The vaccines have been available to the high-risk for months and to all people over the age of 16 for some time.

We have isolated the immediate risks to:

1. Children not eligible to get vaccinated (which are extremely low risk and stop huddling together in schools thanks to summer breaks)
2. Adults who chose not to be vaccinated

Long-term, we don't know if a new variant (which will continue to mutate due because it's out in the wild) will eventually circumvent the vaccine protection, but everything so far has pointed to positive signs. We also don't know how long immunity will last, but all good signs there too.

Neither of those long-term items will take into account that we are not eradicating the virus worldwide. So it's move forward with caution.

 

[danlb_2000]

Apples and oranges. The vaccines are driving the decline now. Back then it was extreme mitigation.

I saw a poll that was 43% cancel and 40% postpone with only 17% in favor of this summer.

I haven't been following the story closely, but is "postpone" even an option? If they postpone to next year it will be just like the old days when the winter and summer olympics were both in the same year.

 

[lazyboy97o]

It's only eradicating it in Israel, which is great for Israel.

Eventually, borders will open and the world will still be dealing with the outbreaks.

That’s how the process works. You start getting rid of in some places and then move on to other places. Unlike in the past we have the capability to get this done in months, not years or decades.

 

[GoofGoof]

Of course. Just like measles. But those outbreaks can be quickly quashed with appropriate testing and contract tracing. Just like we occasionally get a measles outbreak.

I agree with this. Long term there can and likely will be outbreaks of Covid, especially once international travel fully opens but we should be well equipped to contain these outbreaks using testing and tracing. The other major benefit we have with Covid is it’s less contagious than measles. In theory an outbreak of covid will be less likely to become widespread due to the virus being less contagious. With measles the outbreaks are only contained due to high vaccination rate. Measles will rip through the unvaccinated population much faster than Covid does so you need a much higher level of vaccination.

 

[Jrb1979]

The vaccines have been available to the high-risk for months and to all people over the age of 16 for some time.

We have isolated the immediate risks to:

1. Children not eligible to get vaccinated (which are extremely low risk and stop huddling together in schools thanks to summer breaks)
2. Adults who chose not to be vaccinated

Long-term, we don't know if a new variant (which will continue to mutate due because it's out in the wild) will eventually circumvent the vaccine protection, but everything so far has pointed to positive signs. We also don't know how long immunity will last, but all good signs there too.

Neither of those long-term items will take into account that we are not eradicating the virus worldwide. So it's move forward with caution.

I never said anything about eradicating Covid. I am saying the more people vaccinated in a country the less likely you have big spreads again.

 

[havoc315]

The vaccines have been available to the high-risk for months and to all people over the age of 16 for some time.

We have isolated the immediate risks to:

1. Children not eligible to get vaccinated (which are extremely low risk and stop huddling together in schools thanks to summer breaks)
2. Adults who chose not to be vaccinated

As long as we have extensive disease spread, the risk extends to those that are vaccinated. Now, the risk to the vaccinated is MASSIVELY reduced, but not eliminated.

For example, there was a recent nursing home case.... an unvaccinated worker brought in Covid, infected multiple vaccinated residents.. and 1 of the vaccinated residents die of Covid.

So the risk to the vaccinated is massively reduced. And it you only had 0.1 cases per 100,000... then the risk to vaccinated people would be almost zero, because it would be rare for a vaccinated person to even come into contact with a contagious person. But the more community disease you have, it does introduce a risk even for those vaccinated.

Despite vaccines, nursing homes struggle with Covid outbreaks and deaths

Scattered outbreaks are largely blamed on unvaccinated staff members.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Parker in NYC]

Orange County will lift all mask requirements on Saturday paving the way for a mask-free summer at Walt Disney World​

Orange County will lift all mask requirements on Saturday paving the way for a mask-free summer at Walt Disney World

Is Disney about to remove the requirement for all masks at Walt Disney World?

www.wdwmagic.com

So why were people laughing at me a week ago when I said as much?!

 

[havoc315]

So in terms of coronavirus and WDW normalization..
Seeing more evidence that normalization is being slowed for reasons that have nothing to do with Covid (though might still use Covid as an excuse).

From disneytouristblog comments:

 

[havoc315]

I think this highlights why the US didn’t go down this route. The author’s opinion is that the passports played a key role in allowing Israel to re-open their economy and end their lockdown but even in a culture where there’s less “resistance” they still were not a good motivator for vaccinations. In the US we have more people that would have resisted. I also think it’s important to note that the passports were a short term solution to end lockdowns not something used to “punish“ the unvaccinated.

Speaking to my friends and family in Israel... I can assure you that the passports were indeed a major reason that people on the fence went and got vaccinated. It really was both a carrot (get vaccinated and get to go to the movies!) and it was a stick (don't get vaccinated, and you can't do XYZ).

 

[mmascari]

My only question is why are so many people on this thread still insisting that the problem with Covid19 will last for months. The reality is that with just 4.54 cases per 100,000 and dropping quickly it is likely that the US will fall to just 2 cases per 100,000. With every passing day the more convinced I am that this pandemic in the US is over.

Agreed. Had we kept mitigations in place nationwide through April and had we gotten strong vaccine demand from 80%+ of adults we would most likely be well under 1 case per 100,000 now and all Covid mitigations would have been gone by May 1. Instead, we did what we did as far as mitigation and vaccine demand slowed so it will take into July to reach the same point on mitigations and maybe longer to get cases that low. As I have said for a while now, it’s vaccine or bust and we didn’t do it the easier way, but that also doesn’t mean we cannot and will not get there. There are many different ways to get to the same end result.

On vaccines I agree too. It’s a slow pace but we aren’t done despite what the doom and gloom crowd wants us to believe. Slow down doesn’t mean stopped. People have various reasons for not being vaccinated and not all of the people left to go are anti-vaxx or politically motivated. For some it just comes down to getting around to it and timing it to minimize the impact from potential side effects. I still think that by far the best motivator to get unvaccinated people in is for employers to allow vaccinated workers to lose the mask at work and require proof of vaccination. Very few people would choose to wear a mask 40+ hours a week at work if they have an out.

These two topics are related. As pointed out, if we had kept on a rigorous plan, we could have been done already. However, we're really good at declaring victory before we're actually there and dropping stuff early. Which has extended out when we'll actually get to the end. Instead of May 1, or June 1, perhaps July 1 or August 1. A pattern we seem to be repeating at every stage, so maybe August 1 becomes September 1 or October 1.

It's only doom and gloom to recognize that our actions are prolonging the time when we achieve the desired goals as much as it's irrational hope to assume we're done already and can give up up all actions immediately.

Even more fun, both can exist simultaneously for the same people for different contexts. For instance, I can simultaneously plan a waterpark vacation for August, in an environment that I assume will have no distancing, masks, or any mitigations at all. While at the same time not planning a WDW trip with all the same things. Mostly because of the ability to adjust on the fly with that unknown date from above. If we hit the July 1 date, either would be fine. If we say "hold my beer" and drive the date to September, the water park has under $500 on the line while the WDW trip would be $$$. Plus the WDW trip is for an unknown today product where instead of getting traditional value, some dollars are going toward mitigation measures instead.

Let's hope we hit July 1, we need hope.
Let's accept that we may make it longer through our own collective actions.

 

[GoofGoof]

These two topics are related. As pointed out, if we had kept on a rigorous plan, we could have been done already. However, we're really good at declaring victory before we're actually there and dropping stuff early. Which has extended out when we'll actually get to the end. Instead of May 1, or June 1, perhaps July 1 or August 1. A pattern we seem to be repeating at every stage, so maybe August 1 becomes September 1 or October 1.

It's only doom and gloom to recognize that our actions are prolonging the time when we achieve the desired goals as much as it's irrational hope to assume we're done already and can give up up all actions immediately.

Even more fun, both can exist simultaneously for the same people for different contexts. For instance, I can simultaneously plan a waterpark vacation for August, in an environment that I assume will have no distancing, masks, or any mitigations at all. While at the same time not planning a WDW trip with all the same things. Mostly because of the ability to adjust on the fly with that unknown date from above. If we hit the July 1 date, either would be fine. If we say "hold my beer" and drive the date to September, the water park has under $500 on the line while the WDW trip would be $$$. Plus the WDW trip is for an unknown today product where instead of getting traditional value, some dollars are going toward mitigation measures instead.

Let's hope we hit July 1, we need hope.
Let's accept that we may make it longer through our own collective actions.

It’s doom and gloom when the same people repeatedly declare that we have failed to get enough people vaccinated when we have no idea how many people we actually need to get vaccinated and we also don’t know how many people will end up vaccinated since we are not done yet (it’s possible we will fail, but that seems less likely each day). It’s doom and gloom when the same people are triggered by any mention of any efforts made to encourage more people to get vaccinated and seem to be be “disappointed“ when the numbers vaccinated do go up because people didn’t follow ”their plan”. It’s doom and gloom when the same people insist that the only way out of this would have been more strict mitigations and vaccine passports when there are many ways out of this and our vaccine or bust plan actually looks like it may work.

I don’t disagree that with more mitigations and better vaccine uptake we almost certainly would be back to normal already. I don’t disagree that we shouldn’t take the victory lap yet either. It does appear at least very likely that we will have a return to mostly normal conditions by some time in July. We will have to wait and see what happens with Covid cases and vaccination percentage but so far none of the changes to masks and distancing and group gatherings has driven a national spike. Cases are still trending down. IMHO that’s the power of the vaccines. I know others disagree and say it’s just a seasonal decline but again, we shall see pretty soon.

Several months ago we had the quote from Fauci where he was asked what level of cases we needed to reach before removing masks, distancing and other covid mitigations and have a return to almost normal and his answer was under 3 cases per 100K which is roughly under 10,000 cases a day. We are currently at 15,000 cases a day for the 7 day average. If the trend continues we may hit that level in a few weeks and certainly before July 1. So in reality we aren’t removing restrictions that prematurely. I was always a fan of gradual reduction of mitigation anyway as opposed to waiting to hit a target and then flipping the light switch. It does seem now that we are fast approaching the Fauci target for removal of restrictions the goal posts are being moved to 1,000 or 500 cases a day instead now by some.

 

[MaryJaneP]

Coronavirus and Walt Disney World seems to be eerily similar to Operation Torch in North Africa in WWII. Many battles were fought. Some went for the Axis, some for the Allies. Eventually, it was reported to Winston Churchill that the Allies had secured all fronts in North Africa. Churchill's recognition thereafter may apply to today. In it he recognized that this was not the end of the war, and that it was not the beginning of the end of the war, but that maybe, hopefully, it was the end of the beginning. With fingers crossed, increased vaccine uptake and intelligent use of all disease mitigation efforts will lead to a significantly improved WDW vacation, like those so many of us remember.

 

[DisneyCane]

I haven't been following the story closely, but is "postpone" even an option? If they postpone to next year it will be just like the old days when the winter and summer olympics were both in the same year.

Not sure if it is on the table as an option. It would probably cause some competitive issues especially in things like gymnastics where a year longer will make some competitors "elderly" for the sport.

Honestly, if Japan doesn't want to do it this summer, they should find a recent host that still has the venues built and see if they can figure out housing for the athletes and move it. Have no or very limited spectators to avoid issues accommodating large numbers of visitors.

 

[DisneyFan32]

It’s doom and gloom when the same people repeatedly declare that we have failed to get enough people vaccinated when we have no idea how many people we actually need to get vaccinated and we also don’t know how many people will end up vaccinated since we are not done yet (it’s possible we will fail, but that seems less likely each day). It’s doom and gloom when the same people are triggered by any mention of any efforts made to encourage more people to get vaccinated and seem to be be “disappointed“ when the numbers vaccinated do go up because people didn’t follow ”their plan”. It’s doom and gloom when the same people insist that the only way out of this would have been more strict mitigations and vaccine passports when there are many ways out of this and our vaccine or bust plan actually looks like it may work.

I don’t disagree that with more mitigations and better vaccine uptake we almost certainly would be back to normal already. I don’t disagree that we shouldn’t take the victory lap yet either. It does appear at least very likely that we will have a return to mostly normal conditions by some time in July. We will have to wait and see what happens with Covid cases and vaccination percentage but so far none of the changes to masks and distancing and group gatherings has driven a national spike. Cases are still trending down. IMHO that’s the power of the vaccines. I know others disagree and say it’s just a seasonal decline but again, we shall see pretty soon.

Several months ago we had the quote from Fauci where he was asked what level of cases we needed to reach before removing masks, distancing and other covid mitigations and have a return to almost normal and his answer was under 3 cases per 100K which is roughly under 10,000 cases a day. We are currently at 15,000 cases a day for the 7 day average. If the trend continues we may hit that level in a few weeks and certainly before July 1. So in reality we aren’t removing restrictions that prematurely. I was always a fan of gradual reduction of mitigation anyway as opposed to waiting to hit a target and then flipping the light switch. It does seem now that we are fast approaching the Fauci target for removal of restrictions the goal posts are being moved to 1,000 or 500 cases a day instead now by some.

^ You mean we have to wear masks and social distancing by fall/winter again as COVID-19 gets worse again? That would be a lot of nightmares again like last year. I don't wear masks anymore for rest of my life because I'm vaccinated!

 

[hopemax]

More a concern for the UK and other countries that have delayed second doses in order to give more people 1st doses...

Delta (India's 1.617.2) variant is showing more vaccine evasiveness for Pfizer than previous variants. In study, people who have received only 1 Pfizer dose generated a neutralizing antibody response 32% of the time. (vs 79% for original Covid, 50% for Alpha / B.1.17). Older people experienced failure to produce NAb more than younger people, as well as those with greater time between 1st & 2nd doses. Delta is also the dominant variant in UK now.

DEFINE_ME

(this is a link to Lancet study, since formatting doesn't make this apparent)

I suspect that people that received delayed 2nd shots are going to be the first group that will need a booster.

 

[mmascari]

Not sure if it is on the table as an option. It would probably cause some competitive issues especially in things like gymnastics where a year longer will make some competitors "elderly" for the sport.

Honestly, if Japan doesn't want to do it this summer, they should find a recent host that still has the venues built and see if they can figure out housing for the athletes and move it. Have no or very limited spectators to avoid issues accommodating large numbers of visitors.

From Wikipedia.org:

2000 XXVII Australia Sydney
2004 XXVIII Greece Athens
2008 XXIX China Beijing
2012 XXX United Kingdom London
2016 XXXI Brazil Rio de Janeiro

Reading those in reverse order, how is Beijing or Sydney looking these days?

Bring in all the competitors a month early, quarantine for 2 weeks, or show vaccine proof. Then go wild in a bubble environment for just those involved. If they could do that same process in Japan, that should work too in theory. It's a big bubble, but isn't Australia already essentially a big bubble?

One assumes Rio isn't a good fallback choice.

 

[danlb_2000]

From Wikipedia.org:

2000 XXVII Australia Sydney
2004 XXVIII Greece Athens
2008 XXIX China Beijing
2012 XXX United Kingdom London
2016 XXXI Brazil Rio de Janeiro

Reading those in reverse order, how is Beijing or Sydney looking these days?

Bring in all the competitors a month early, quarantine for 2 weeks, or show vaccine proof. Then go wild in a bubble environment for just those involved. If they could do that same process in Japan, that should work too in theory. It's a big bubble, but isn't Australia already essentially a big bubble?

One assumes Rio isn't a good fallback choice.

Beijing would be an interesting option since they hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics.

 

[DisneyCane]

From Wikipedia.org:

2000 XXVII Australia Sydney
2004 XXVIII Greece Athens
2008 XXIX China Beijing
2012 XXX United Kingdom London
2016 XXXI Brazil Rio de Janeiro

Reading those in reverse order, how is Beijing or Sydney looking these days?

Bring in all the competitors a month early, quarantine for 2 weeks, or show vaccine proof. Then go wild in a bubble environment for just those involved. If they could do that same process in Japan, that should work too in theory. It's a big bubble, but isn't Australia already essentially a big bubble?

One assumes Rio isn't a good fallback choice.

Sydney would definitely get my vote if the venues still exist. Like you said, it's kind of a big bubble. Test the athletes before they head over, quarantine two weeks. Test again. As long as both tests negative, they enter the Olympic village or whatever hotels they set up.