News Disney mask policy at Walt Disney World theme parks

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Kn95 is the Chinese rating designation that is pretty close to N95

…other countries have similar ratings…a lot of the kn95s in the US don’t come directly from China (like everything sold in Walmart and/or made with Disney characters on it)…but rather through South Korea. Weird.

 

[LittleBuford]

I would rather never again visit Walt Disney World for the rest of my life than wear a mask for ANY part of the trip.

You can think that is weird or extreme. That's okay. I think a lot of views about masks here, especially from the "it's just a piece of cloth, big deal" crowd are weird or extreme. But that's how I feel.

I won't be back at WDW before masks are gone. Fortunately, I still feel strongly that we are only weeks away from that happening.

I don't find masks much of an imposition and I wear them whenever I'm indoors, but I too refuse to return to Disney until I can go without a face covering (though I suspect we have different reasons for feeling as we do). No-one here, as far as I can recall, has suggested that those of us who feel this way are being weird or extreme. Rather, it's the complaints about the mask requirements that some find overblown.

 

[LittleBuford]

Great. Vaccinated people who don’t need to are wearing N95 masks. That’ll help.

Why is that an issue for you, though? As long as no-one is telling you to follow suit, why does it bother you?

 

[Chi84]

Why is that an issue for you, though? As long as no-one is telling you to follow suit, why does it bother you?

It doesn’t. I just find it telling that the people who are being most cautious are the least likely to be causing a problem.

 

[LittleBuford]

It doesn’t. I just find it telling that the people who are being most cautious are the least likely to be causing a problem.

I plan to wear an N95 mask on what'll be my first flight since the pandemic later this month. It'll make me feel safer, and that's all that matters to me. I don't view myself as helping (or hindering) the overall fight; I'm just doing what I can to remain halfway happy and sane during this miserable pandemic.

 

[Tom P.]

I plan to wear an N95 mask on what'll be my first flight since the pandemic later this month. It'll make me feel safer, and that's all that matters to me. My being (arguably) overcautious doesn't change the bigger picture at all.

Would you agree, though, that if you are fully vaccinated and are also taking the further precaution of wearing an N95 mask, the gold standard for mask protection, that you shouldn't really be concerned with whether or not those around you are wearing a mask?

 

[LittleBuford]

Would you agree, though, that if you are fully vaccinated and are also taking the further precaution of wearing an N95 mask, the gold standard for mask protection, that you shouldn't really be concerned with whether or not those around you are wearing a mask?

As I understand it, the gold standard is a properly fitted N95 mask, which I really can't claim mine will be. Still, I'm happy to agree with your statement on an intellectual level, but that doesn't change the fact that I am too scared at present to be among unmasked people (except for close friends whose vaccination status I can be certain of). What happened to my father has left me more concerned than I otherwise might have been.

 

[Chi84]

Would you agree, though, that if you are fully vaccinated and are also taking the further precaution of wearing an N95 mask, the gold standard for mask protection, that you shouldn't really be concerned with whether or not those around you are wearing a mask?

If you’re wearing an N95 mask to protect yourself that’s great. But if you’re wearing one to protect others or avoid spreading the virus, don’t you want to know how much more effective that actually is? I mean over being triple vaccinated?

 

[Tom P.]

As I understand it, the gold standard is a properly fitted N95 mask, which I really can't claim mine will be. Still, I'm happy to agree with your statement on an intellectual level, but that doesn't change the fact that I am too scared at present to be among unmasked people (except for close friends whose vaccination status I can be certain of). What happened to my father has left me more concerned than I otherwise might have been.

I think that's fair and I respect the fact that you can acknowledge that your approach is being driven more by emotion than intellectual argument right now. And I think it is totally reasonable in your situation. I just hope that you can understand, intellectually if not emotionally, why some other people might feel differently.

For me, I have had Covid plus have been fully vaccinated. So I have natural immunity boosted by the vaccine. In my situation, I am comfortable taking certain risks and believing that my risk level is relatively low. For me, being unmasked and being around other unmasked people doesn't bother me.

I think if we could just get to the point where we can acknowledge the legitimate disagreement on both sides, and not that you're either a religious mask cultist or an anti-science Covid denier, we'd be better off.

 

[LittleBuford]

If you’re wearing an N95 mask to protect yourself that’s great. But if you’re wearing one to protect others or avoid spreading the virus, don’t you want to know how effective that actually is?

The CDC recommends that vaccinated people continue to wear masks indoors to slow the spread of the Delta variant in areas of substantial or high transmission. That guidance must be based on something, though I do wish the relevant studies were foregrounded on the CDC website.

 

[Tom P.]

The CDC recommends that vaccinated people continue to wear masks indoors to slow the spread of the Delta variant in areas of substantial or high transmission. That guidance must be based on something, though I do wish the relevant studies were foregrounded on the CDC website.

My honest opinion is that the CDC believes that fully vaccinated people are at low enough risk to go without masks. Hence their guidance earlier this year. However, when they issued that guidance, unvaccinated people threw away the masks as well. I think the CDC went back to recommending that everyone mask up because they felt that's the only way they could get unvaccinated people to do it.

 

[LittleBuford]

I think if we could just get to the point where we can acknowledge the legitimate disagreement on both sides, and not that you're either a religious mask cultist or an anti-science Covid denier, we'd be better off.

I agree the debate has become overly divisive and vituperative. I think we need to start recognising each other's humanity and stop imagining that our own opinions and experiences are representative of what most people think or should think.

 

[LittleBuford]

My honest opinion is that the CDC believes that fully vaccinated people are at low enough risk to go without masks. Hence their guidance earlier this year. However, when they issued that guidance, unvaccinated people threw away the masks as well. I think the CDC went back to recommending that everyone mask up because they felt that's the only way they could get unvaccinated people to do it.

Perhaps there's some truth to that. As someone who would continue masking anyway and never stopped masking even when the CDC said I could, I suppose I just accept the current guidance at face value (no pun intended).

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

In my situation, I am comfortable taking certain risks and believing that my risk level is relatively low. For me, being unmasked and being around other unmasked people doesn't bother me.

I wonder how much our comfort level is based on our situations, I work in a casino and have been surrounded by literally hundreds of unmasked people most days since March, I qualified to get my first shot before we reopened but those first few weeks were pretty terrifying knowing I wasn’t fully vaccinated yet. NV has mask mandates but with most people drinking and/or smoking not many people are wearing them very often.

Seven months of daily exposure to maskless people and (knock on wood) my Pfizer vaccine and my immune system have done their job. My guess is I’m exposed to Covid most days and I’ve even worked with unvaccinated coworkers who got sick (fortunately none serious) and despite working side by side with them for hours I didn’t get sick.

Because of this I have absolutely no concern being around unmasked people, I’m around them all day, but if I worked at home or in a small office isolated from people I suspect my comfort level would likely be very different.

 

[HairyChest]

Get your popcorn ready kids. Monday will be a very interesting day.

 

[bdearl41]

The CDC recommends that vaccinated people continue to wear masks indoors to slow the spread of the Delta variant in areas of substantial or high transmission. That guidance must be based on something, though I do wish the relevant studies were foregrounded on the CDC website.

Wait the concept of using actual data to make decisions. Nah, not into it. Arbitrary rules for all.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

The CDC recommends that vaccinated people continue to wear masks indoors to slow the spread of the Delta variant in areas of substantial or high transmission. That guidance must be based on something, though I do wish the relevant studies were foregrounded on the CDC website.

The CDC recommending masks indoors to slow the spread in areas of Substantial or High transmission is not the problem. The problem is that they defined "Substantial" so hilariously low that pretty much EVERYWHERE is considered "Substantial."

 

[DisneyCane]

IMO, if WDW only had FL residents visiting, there would be no need to mask. But I see a whole lot of red on that map, and those people may be coming to FL and WDW in particular..

I can understand this perspective. However, tourists are visiting many other destinations in FL from those red areas and none of them require masks, including the extremely similar crowded theme park environments down I-4.

Also, the majority of out of state visitors to WDW are coming from the northeast where, even though they are "red" for community transmission, it's still under 0.3% of the population testing positive weekly AND the people coming from those states are even more likely to be vaccinated than FL residents.

you also were very local in early 2020 about how “great” Florida was doing. And that turned out to be “not correct”


The map was flipped about 4 months ago, Mom…so I’m not sure they have anything figured out. That there looks like a pattern from NATURE.

At least you have acknowledged that the spread of COVID (or any virus) is a natural phenomenon and follows a naturally occurring outbreak curve.

In early 2020 I never used the word "great" to describe anything. Very early on when we were led to believe that 15, then 47 days to slow the spread would lead to cases going to zero, the cases in FL appeared to be headed that way. FL was mostly "locking down" at the time. After that period, I would compare FL's "numbers" to other states with much more strict "mitigation" and point out that FL was around average and that the amount "better" the states like NY and CA were doing was not significant enough to justify the drastically different mitigation philosophy.

 

[DisneyCane]

My honest opinion is that the CDC believes that fully vaccinated people are at low enough risk to go without masks. Hence their guidance earlier this year. However, when they issued that guidance, unvaccinated people threw away the masks as well. I think the CDC went back to recommending that everyone mask up because they felt that's the only way they could get unvaccinated people to do it.

I agree with your opinion completely. However, them doing so and not admitting the real reasoning behind it leads to distrust of the CDC.

If they had just given the real reason, that could have led to vaccinated people putting more pressure on unvaccinated friends and relatives to get vaccinated because they could blame them for why masking was back. Instead, it led to people saying "the vaccines don't work."

 

[CaptainAmerica]

It's also a joke that the CDC defines "community" at the county level. Hartford County, Connecticut includes Hartford... population 7,000 per square mile, and Burlington... population 300 per square mile. That is not a "community," not matter how hard you strain the definition of the word. Yet Burlington schools are still yoked to Hartford's bad behavior.