Is the current model sustainable?

Walt Disney World
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I’m not sure we, as a population, are thinking of herd immunity the way we should be for this virus. It might not be a simple test for antibodies that is going to tell us that, as it would for chickenpox, for instance.

There’s some newer info that suggests other things are at play besides antibodies- T cell memory of prior coronavirus infections (which we all have had). Some people who were asymptomatic or never got infected in the first place may have this type of immunity, which is hard to test for.

Remember, we have never had a coronavirus pandemic before.

It may be that NYC does indeed have herd immunity, if you put these two types of immunity together.

Also, a new paper in The Lancet just came out that showed that the shutdowns didn’t prevent cases, but spread them out through time so people could be properly cared for, which was the original intention of the shutdowns, as the scientists who developed the protocols have maintained all along.

This leads me to believe that the people in NYC, for instance, who were going to get it have mostly gotten it, though masks and whatever is left of the other restrictions are still keeping that number down. If those are lifted, there will be more cases, but then that may be all there will be. I personally hope mask mandates stay in place until there is a vaccine.

So I’m going to be a bit more optimistic- I think that COVID will be part of the background ILIs we have around, but much better than it is now. Nationally (except for CA) we’re at or just past the peak. I don’t think that there will be a second wave, but there will be cases occurring continually until most susceptible people have had it or there’s a vaccine. So I do agree with the Oxford don, although I’m sure he thinks there are far more susceptible people out there than I do.

Long story short- I think both UOR and WDW will be just fine.

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Like others in this thread, I’m optimistic for the following reasons:

  1. Disney said they wouldn’t open any attraction unless they could make a profit, which leads me to believe they are operating on a day-to-day profit at each of their open parks right now. Whether they have an overall loss right now is TBD but in the long term they can continue to operate this way and cover their costs. They just won’t be making billions in annual profits like they did in 2019.
  2. Vaccines and treatments and herd immunity are coming. Maybe not all at once, but I’m convinced it will get better in the medium to long term. We’re at the lowest point now, with maybe one more bad wave in November - January. Subsequent waves will seem mild.
  3. With or without a vaccine, wearing masks and distancing has proven to be enough to resume most activities. When infection rates come down, I’m sure most other activities will resume as well. We may even have sports and concerts and plays by early 2021 (after the winter wave subsides, assuming there is one - there is still a small chance there won’t be if we’ve let the virus run it’s course this summer)
  4. If the virus is here to stay, people will start accepting more risk and doing more activities that they have been delaying. We’ve all been sacrificing to give health care professionals and the elderly a chance. But we won’t live in bunkers forever.

All that said, I am fully expecting that things will only get better from here (meaning July-August). Nowhere to go but up.

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Missouri, particularly County A which I’ve yammered on so much about, has seen increases that changed the numbers side of the graph so much, the late March/April uptick doesn’t even look like an uptick any more. County A since 1 June has had an additional 800 cases - up from 100. Deaths - 1 from March thru April. 1 in May. And 1 for all of June & July. Usually about 25 - give or take 5 - in the hospital where my sister works. Idk about the other one. Maybe one on a ventilator. So huge huge increase in numbers of positive cases, but fewer in the hospital and death rate mostly flat. Antigen testing has backed off considerably. Other testing is still being done a lot.

This is what I was expecting and am hoping by the end of July we’ll be seeing the spike begin to decline.

The third and fourth largest Missouri cities have passed mask wearing ordinances, to expire sometime in October. And of course several major retailers have very recently begun requiring masks. Since we’re near the end of the second month of this huge uptick, the Missouri retailers in these chains are late to the game. And may see their profits decline considerably in August.

This is Missouri. Probably a majority of rural folk will avoid the places requiring masks. Another 25% will gradually give the masks a pass - I’d say between mid and late August, if the spike declines. Then there’s the small group that will wear masks until a vaccine. I have noticed no one giving anyone a hassle due to either wearing or not wearing a mask.

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The estimates and predictions of what actual herd immunity would require are around 60-70% of a population infected. There have been 440,000 confirmed cases in NY, thats about 5%. Even if the true number of cases would be 10x, that would be less than required for the theoretic immunity. To my understanding, in NY the lockdown, social distancing and other preventive measures have played a big role in slowing down the spread, I have not seen claims of this being credited to actual full herd immunity. Also, comparing the potential formation of immunity in a small restricted area to an entire country is misleading in many ways, starting with the time it takes to spread.

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I think we are on the same track here. It looks like we’re near the peak, though we did have a new record today. It was inevitable it was going to catch up to us, unless we wanted to impose a 14-day quarantine on incoming travelers forever (like Hawaii). But, like Florida, tourism is a huge part of the economy here, so continuing the quarantine was just not going to happen.

We’ll probably never see the cases/100k as more densely crowded places, but we will catch up to SD, ND, & WY, (which never had any shutdowns to begin with).

You could substitute Montana for Missouri and be completely on target.

But how long do people want to go without getting out and about? I mean, if the only thing standing between me and WDW is a mask, then I’ll mask up. I also wonder if socioeconomic factors play into mask-wearing, that is, are Disney guests more likely to wear a mask because of that? We’d have to assume Disney guests are more affluent and also that people higher up the socioeconomic ladder are more inclined to wear a mask and follow other restrictions. I kind of believe both those things are true, in general. Of course there will be individual exceptions.

So getting back to the question, is it sustainable, I’d say yes it is because it ties into another topic we were discussing in that thread about changes Disney might make. I think it plays into their long-term plans of targeting a smaller but wealthier demo.

When we visited a year ago, it seemed to me that Disney was at the point where they just couldn’t keep counting on increasing volume to pay the bills- the parks were incredibly crowded. But there are opportunities to buy one’s way out of that- and it seems like a lot of people do. Maybe the pandemic is forcing Disney to make a choice they wanted to make anyway- fewer guests, who spend more.

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Yes. Generally speaking, socio-economics plays a part, as does amount of education, in the amount of mask wearing, tho in central Missouri, the main motivator would probably be work requirement. If a store requires mask wearing, there are other store chains that aren’t. They’ll see an uptick in business.

And that’s the thing about Disney. The only competitor Disney has - for me - is the National Park system. That’s not the case for my sister. She hates wearing a mask - one exception to the socio-econ-edu idea - but LOVES Disney. There’s nothing else that compares. She’ll suffer - and maybe forget about - her mask for WDW.

As for is the current model sustainable? The length of time factors heavily here. The current park % capacity is preferable to no revenue at all. I really hope the average Joe and his family will not be locked out of any future Disney trip ever, even a once in a lifetime. Altho I certainly agree, it seemed as tho a certain direction was in the works, and this virus reset helps that.

Unless Disney would open a property on some fallow Nebraska farmland, under a series of giant roof systems, powered by groves of windmills.

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Right. Again, I’m just theorizing out loud, but I bet someone like that will spend more. Masks could filter out a lot more than just germs, IMHO.

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Valid point - I haven’t gotten a great feel for what attendance compared to normal that WDW is operating at currently. Is it 10% or 25%? And how many CMs did they bring back? But I’d also guess they have huge fixed costs which may swamp CM pay which would be mostly the reduced costs they’d enjoy when closed. We’ll likely have to wait until early November to get numbers on the reopening to compare the August closed numbers to the partial reopen that’s ongoing…

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Pffft. Why listen to “facts” and lived experience when strongly-held beliefs are far more compelling?

It’s only because my long-term Florida residency has addled my wits and years of DVC ownership has rendered me innumerate that I stubbornly cling to the facts I see directly and hear reported by close-at-hand sources as opposed to accepting the reports of how Florida Is Improving Every Day provided by those hundreds if not thousands of miles away.

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? I’m confused. I was not addressing anything about Florida. I was addressing the assertion that NY has herd immunity. No, we shut down and stayed shut down, reopening in phases only when the numbers indicated it was safe to do so.

I wasn’t saying anything about Florida.

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I was saying that we’re both demonstrating the same arrogance of relating first hand knowledge of a place where we actually live, as opposed to yielding to the coolly rational explanations that our moral and intellectual betters can provide, having the luxury of distance and perspective. Our pitiable emotional investment in places where much if not all of who and what we care about in the world exists makes us alarmist, screeching harpies, or chickens of the little type (whichever is gender-appropriate).

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Ah, gotcha. I’m sorry I misunderstood.

Hugs!

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Being a cat, I’m inscrutable on a good day, so it’s more than understandable.

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What park passes are you referring to?

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Right now, ticket holders have to book park passes for each day of their ticket. You need a ticket and a park pass to enter a alarm - essentially their way of managing capacity.

If you already have your tickets for a trip between now and September of next year, you should be able to go ahead and book them.

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Aka park reservations. Currently ticket holders go to My Disney Experience to reserve one park per day. This is meant to limit the number of guests in a park, thus helping with social distancing.

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I can’t reserve a park on my app only on a desktop. What am I doing wrong?

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Probably nothing! :confounded:

I misspoke - I’ve only reserved at a Disney.go page for park reservations!

Park reservations can be seen on MDE. Maybe even changed but pretty sure not initially made, currently.

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Use the website on your phone browser, not the app itself.

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:woman_facepalming:

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