When do you think the Disney World theme parks will reopen?

texas211;2527753 wrote: According to this, it is a wrap.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8248743/Disneys-theme-parks-unlikely-open-gates-2021-according-analysts.html?ito=social-facebook&fbclid=IwAR2Jk6VX2FkJdGtEA6VnTfg2H5HX6B_-77B3sv_pYt67l35jVYX87FZRVyc

Yeah, but that's from the Daily Mail. It's like getting your news from the National Enquirer here in the U.S.

Social distancing and Disney can't be found in the same sentence! I don't see how they could possibly do it. How could they keep people 6 feet apart, wipe down rides in between guests, properly sanitize the hotel rooms, etc. What about buses and monorails that are always stuffed to the max.

No one is going to feel comfortable wearing a mask most months of the year due to heat and humidity. Most little kids and babies won't keep them on at all. Temperature taking won't help much - I just read today that only about 1/3 of COVID patients actually run a fever. And what would they do with guests who get sick while they are there? They won't be able to travel for at least 3-4 weeks and most won't be admitted to hospitals.

I want to go back more than most people - I was supposed to go first week in May. But I don't understand how it could be done safely.

MNNHFLTX;2527759 wrote: Yeah, but that's from the Daily Mail. It's like getting your news from the National Enquirer here in the U.S.

Though that sounds as reliable as any news we have in the US

However, who knows. Might open w/ crazy restrictions, as I see some floating out there, not that I would go. I'm not going to wdw w/ a mask on.. whew. nope.

I can't speak to the rest of the country, but last weekend was near perfect spring weather for the northeast and it was crazy! I'll let you decide if it was crazy good or crazy bad, but there were so many people outside just trying to get out of house arrest and get some fresh air. I think governments are going to have a real challenge as we progress into warmer weather if they choose to try and continue to control the general public.

baldburke;2527828 wrote: I can't speak to the rest of the country, but last weekend was near perfect spring weather for the northeast and it was crazy! I'll let you decide if it was crazy good or crazy bad, but there were so many people outside just trying to get out of house arrest and get some fresh air. I think governments are going to have a real challenge as we progress into warmer weather if they choose to try and continue to control the general public.

Yeah, in my town (down south) there are lots of people out working in their yards, walking, riding bikes, etc. but at least they are keeping distant from each other. I just can't imagine people being able to stay even 3 feet apart (much less 6 feet) at a place like WDW. The attractions just aren't built for it. Even if they could, I won't be going anyplace with crowds until there is an effective vaccine. I am in the high risk group and so is my wife, who has a seriously compromised immune system.

joonyer;2527837 wrote: Yeah, in my town (down south) there are lots of people out working in their yards, walking, riding bikes, etc. but at least they are keeping distant from each other. I just can't imagine people being able to stay even 3 feet apart (much less 6 feet) at a place like WDW. The attractions just aren't built for it. Even if they could, I won't be going anyplace with crowds until there is an effective vaccine. I am in the high risk group and so is my wife, who has a seriously compromised immune system.

Best to take care then! High risk folks should definitely take more precautions. Stay safe!

I wonder if this will cut down on ECV traffic/rentals and stroller traffic and rules?

I highly doubt they are going to relax existing rules when the parks reopen. If anything there are going to be many more rules that will be enforced strictly

Zippy 1;2527863 wrote: I highly doubt they are going to relax existing rules when the parks reopen. If anything there are going to be many more rules that will be enforced strictly

You are likely right! Probably so many rules that it will make people question if it is worth dropping a sizable amount of cash only to have limited fun.

We had a late August trip planned. We still only have the deposit down. We have no idea if WDW will be open in time, but have had conversations about whether we would want to go if they are. Some things we've thought about...

If they limit attendance, will our reservation be honored? They would have to cancel some reservations if they want limited capacity.

Will we want to be in Florida, in August, wearing masks? That would be challenging. Inside, no problem. Outside, difficult to imagine.

What will the social distancing do for wait times and ride capacity? If attendance is limited, hopefully that would reduce the impact on wait times or at least even it out with the distancing?

They would have to drastically reduce the number of sit down reservations. You can't eat and wear a mask, so they would have to make sure everyone is far enough apart and leave turnaround time for cleaning, and to make sure guests don't overlap.

We talked about all of this over dinner with the girls and explained that all of this could seriously impact our experience. We also talked about whether it would be taking an unnecessary risk to go. And then there's the question of value. Will the reduced experience come with reduced cost? We can't imagine paying the usual cost for a trip like that and having the experience greatly reduced. But, are they likely to offer those going a significant discount? Questionable.

So, we'll likely pass on a trip this year.

We were also talking about the logistics of certain rides and queues. You wouldn't want everyone touching the interactive portions of queues, so that option would likely be gone. The rides that have pre-shows that they usually cram a bunch of people into would have to have those portions bypassed. Like the portrait room before the Haunted Mansion ride. So, again, seriously impacted experience.

TheVBs;2527891 wrote: We were also talking about the logistics of certain rides and queues. You wouldn't want everyone touching the interactive portions of queues, so that option would likely be gone. The rides that have pre-shows that they usually cram a bunch of people into would have to have those portions bypassed. Like the portrait room before the Haunted Mansion ride. So, again, seriously impacted experience.

Just think of all the people (and kids) that hang and lean on the rails as you clean. Good luck keeping those germ free.

However, just like sending your kids to daycare and they were "always sick" those first couple years but then hardly ever miss a beat in the later years. We need herd immunity!

baldburke;2527895 wrote: Just think of all the people (and kids) that hang and lean on the rails as you clean. Good luck keeping those germ free.

However, just like sending your kids to daycare and they were "always sick" those first couple years but then hardly ever miss a beat in the later years. We need herd immunity!

It comes down to it, these forms of entertainment really don't work with this clorox the world mentality. life has risk. Either go out and take the risk and rewards, or wear a bubble.

Pesky science facts:

"Herd immunity is an epidemiological concept that describes the state where a population – usually of people – is sufficiently immune to a disease that the infection will not spread within that group. In other words, enough people can't get the disease – either through vaccination or natural immunity – that the people who are vulnerable are protected.

For example, let's think about mumps. Mumps is a very infectious disease that, while relatively benign, is very uncomfortable and sometimes causes nasty life-long complications. It's also vaccine-preventable, with a highly effective vaccine that has made the disease incredibly rare in the modern age.

Mumps has a basic reproductive rate (R0) of 10-12, which means that in a population which is entirely susceptible – meaning no one is immune to the virus – every person who is infected will pass the disease on to 10-12 people.

This means that without vaccination roughly 95 percent of the population gets infected over time. But even with something that is this infectious, there are still some people – 5 percent of the population – who don't get sick, because once everyone else is immune there's no one to catch the disease from.

We can increase that number by vaccinating, because vaccination makes people immune to infection, but it also stops infected people passing on the disease to everyone that they otherwise would. If we can get enough people immune to the disease, then it will stop spreading in the population.

And that's herd immunity, in a nutshell.

For mumps, you need 92 percent of the population to be immune for the disease to stop spreading entirely. This is what's known as the herd immunity threshold. COVID-19 is, fortunately, much less infectious than mumps, with an estimated R0 of roughly 3.

With this number, the proportion of people who need to be infected is lower but still high, sitting at around 70 percent of the entire population.

Which brings us to why herd immunity could never be considered a preventative measure.

If 70 percent of your population is infected with a disease, it is by definition not prevention. How can it be? Most of the people in your country are sick! And the hopeful nonsense that you can reach that 70 percent by just infecting young people is simply absurd. If only young people are immune, you'd have clusters of older people with no immunity at all, making it incredibly risky for anyone over a certain age to leave their house lest they get infected, forever.

It's also worth thinking about the repercussions of this disastrous scenario – the best estimates put COVID-19 infection fatality rate at around 0.5-1 percent. If 70 percent of an entire population gets sick, that means that between 0.35-0.7 percent of everyone in a country could die, which is a catastrophic outcome.

With something like 10 percent of all infections needing to be hospitalised, you'd also see an enormous number of people very sick, which has huge implications for the country as well.

The sad fact is that herd immunity just isn't a solution to our pandemic woes. Yes, it may eventually happen anyway, but hoping that it will save us all is just not realistic. The time to discuss herd immunity is when we have a vaccine developed, and not one second earlier, because at that point we will be able to really stop the epidemic in its tracks.

Until we have a vaccine, anyone talking about herd immunity as a preventative strategy for COVID-19 is simply wrong. Fortunately, there are other ways of preventing infections from spreading, which all boil down to avoiding people who are sick.

So stay home, stay safe, and practice physical distancing as much as possible."

It's frustrating, and scary, but reality. https://www.sciencealert.com/why-herd-immunity-will-not-save-us-from-the-covid-19-pandemic

TheVBs;2527910 wrote: Pesky science facts:

"Herd immunity is an epidemiological concept that describes the state where a population – usually of people – is sufficiently immune to a disease that the infection will not spread within that group. In other words, enough people can't get the disease – either through vaccination or natural immunity – that the people who are vulnerable are protected.

For example, let's think about mumps. Mumps is a very infectious disease that, while relatively benign, is very uncomfortable and sometimes causes nasty life-long complications. It's also vaccine-preventable, with a highly effective vaccine that has made the disease incredibly rare in the modern age.

Mumps has a basic reproductive rate (R0) of 10-12, which means that in a population which is entirely susceptible – meaning no one is immune to the virus – every person who is infected will pass the disease on to 10-12 people.

This means that without vaccination roughly 95 percent of the population gets infected over time. But even with something that is this infectious, there are still some people – 5 percent of the population – who don't get sick, because once everyone else is immune there's no one to catch the disease from.

We can increase that number by vaccinating, because vaccination makes people immune to infection, but it also stops infected people passing on the disease to everyone that they otherwise would. If we can get enough people immune to the disease, then it will stop spreading in the population.

And that's herd immunity, in a nutshell.

For mumps, you need 92 percent of the population to be immune for the disease to stop spreading entirely. This is what's known as the herd immunity threshold. COVID-19 is, fortunately, much less infectious than mumps, with an estimated R0 of roughly 3.

With this number, the proportion of people who need to be infected is lower but still high, sitting at around 70 percent of the entire population.

Which brings us to why herd immunity could never be considered a preventative measure.

If 70 percent of your population is infected with a disease, it is by definition not prevention. How can it be? Most of the people in your country are sick! And the hopeful nonsense that you can reach that 70 percent by just infecting young people is simply absurd. If only young people are immune, you'd have clusters of older people with no immunity at all, making it incredibly risky for anyone over a certain age to leave their house lest they get infected, forever.

It's also worth thinking about the repercussions of this disastrous scenario – the best estimates put COVID-19 infection fatality rate at around 0.5-1 percent. If 70 percent of an entire population gets sick, that means that between 0.35-0.7 percent of everyone in a country could die, which is a catastrophic outcome.

With something like 10 percent of all infections needing to be hospitalised, you'd also see an enormous number of people very sick, which has huge implications for the country as well.

The sad fact is that herd immunity just isn't a solution to our pandemic woes. Yes, it may eventually happen anyway, but hoping that it will save us all is just not realistic. The time to discuss herd immunity is when we have a vaccine developed, and not one second earlier, because at that point we will be able to really stop the epidemic in its tracks.

Until we have a vaccine, anyone talking about herd immunity as a preventative strategy for COVID-19 is simply wrong. Fortunately, there are other ways of preventing infections from spreading, which all boil down to avoiding people who are sick.

So stay home, stay safe, and practice physical distancing as much as possible."

It's frustrating, and scary, but reality. https://www.sciencealert.com/why-herd-immunity-will-not-save-us-from-the-covid-19-pandemic

Except that there are areas who have already reached herd immunity. Check out Sweden.