California governor in "no hurry" to open theme parks

ApolloAndy said:

I'm kind of split here. There isn't really evidence that theme parks specifically are the source of Florida's massive problems, but the permissive regulation in Florida almost certainly is. It may be the case that, in isolation, opening theme parks itself wouldn't lead to transmissions in either guests or staff, but opening theme parks means lots more people travelling, staying in hotels, eating in restaurants and also signals to the general population (mistakenly) that "if Disneyland is open, why can't I have a bunch of friends over?" It's not like opening theme parks is a totally isolated event. It serves as a signpost to the wider culture and Disneyland especially is a major travel destination and a major symbol.

You've articulated my point better than I was able to.

When theme parks and pro/college sporting events with large numbers of fans were discussed a couple months back, I didn't expect either to happen because they would create contact tracing nightmares. Fast forward and there is a lot of inconsistencies in terms of contact tracing in terms of how much of it is being done. Some reports of it happening and working and others where there appears to be none. Need a strong public health system to do that well but the US barely has a public health system much less a strong one.

Jeff said:

The height of the infection happened while the parks were closed.

That's mostly true.

Universal reopened on June 5th, Sea World and Busch Gardens on June 11th. Disney didn't open until mid to late July. Florida hit its peak on July 16th. So yes, Disney was opening up during the peak. However, the other local parks had been open for a full month.

Even with that, it's unlikely that the parks contributed greatly to the spread.

Entirely anecdotal, but I had a colleague recently return from a trip to South Korea to adopt a child, spending well over a month there over two separate trips. Cases are low and managed well, but stuff is open. Schools are open. Theme parks are open (I talked him into visiting Lotte World). Sports are open with limited capacity. Even open-air food markets are open.

From his perspective, there is one glaring difference between what we are doing and what they are doing; the casual informal gatherings (weddings, birthday parties, etc.) that are happening anywhere and everywhere, sometimes with a pretty sizeable crowd.

I get what Andy is saying about the incorrect assumption; "hey if Disneyland is open it must be OK, right"?....but the attitude over there is "hey some fun things are open so if we like that then we should all keep doing the best we can and take personal responsibility for making sure **** stays open".

There was a story about this early in the week on NBC. In the US, sure, we seem to have generally kept people out of large event gatherings, but friends and family hang out as if they can account for all of the activity of the others, and that's where the spread is likely happening the most. It's certainly what's going on in rural red state areas, because there are no large event gatherings.

I imagine it's going to get worse to the north in short order, because eating on patios is going to be a non-starter. Then we'll have the holidays, where families will gather with the unfounded belief that it's "safer" than gathering with total strangers. We're struggling with this, because we're watching what my in-laws do on social media, and they're putting themselves at risk unnecessarily.

OhioStater said:

From his perspective, there is one glaring difference between what we are doing and what they are doing; the casual informal gatherings (weddings, birthday parties, etc.) that are happening anywhere and everywhere, sometimes with a pretty sizeable crowd.

I get what Andy is saying about the incorrect assumption; "hey if Disneyland is open it must be OK, right"?....but the attitude over there is "hey some fun things are open so if we like that then we should all keep doing the best we can and take personal responsibility for making sure **** stays open".

This. I feel completely confident in a potential trip to Cedar Point on closing weekend. But I don't feel nearly as confident visiting with and staying with my parents in my childhood home over that weekend. I know Cedar Point will be safe despite having 10,000+ guests in the park. My parents (approaching 70), on the other hand, went from bleaching grocery bags to "what pandemic?" when they got tired of it about two months in.

I don't see any excuse for any further closures. Again, other parks in other states were not super-spreader events. They made guidelines. In fact, I have a parody of a song just to make Newsom think about his actions:

"Mad At Newsom"
a parody of "Mad At Disney" calling on CA's governor to reopen our parks

(V1)
I'm mad at Newsom, Newsom
He tricked us, tricked us
Now our jobs are gonna get furloughed
And 2020's ending
We still know nothing
About how we can reopen soon

(Pre-Chorus 1)
He trolled us
Kept saying we will open
And all this "so close" nonsense is nothing but BS

(Chorus)
We are sad now
We are mad now
We aren't happy now (happy now)
We aren't giving up (giving up)
We are hurt now
By our governor
When the hell can we reopen parks now?
When the hell is it? When the hell is it?
When the hell can we reopen parks now?

(V2)
Our neighbors' big attractions
They opened safely
Why can't Cali do the same thing too?
He said he's in no hurry
But we can't afford to
Wait another month or hundred more

(Pre-Chorus 2)
He opened beaches
And sports bars and the big malls
We're tired of our governor holding us hostage

(Chorus)
We are sad now
We are mad now
We aren't happy now (happy now)
We aren't giving up (giving up)
We are hurt now
By our governor
When the hell can we reopen parks now?
When the hell is it? When the hell is it?
When the hell can we reopen parks now?

(Ending)
I'm mad at Newsom, Newsom
He tricked us, tricked us
Now our jobs are gonna get furloughed

I have a colleague who went to a funeral a month ago. 15 members of his family contracted Covid, two of them ended up hospitalized. Yes, people are letting their guard down in private settings and that will only get worse as we head into these upcoming holidays.

Did somebody seriously just use their first post here to create a fake song about being held hostage because a theme park is closed?

Sucks.

I don't know...it was creative and a change of pace. I kind of liked it. (And no...I didn't create a fake username and then give myself credit for this).

We'll see. We've had a few of those where they come back and edit in some spam.

Well, maybe don't go to Fun Spot to observe best practices.

Regarding that... I'm not being held hostage. Governor Newsom is just trolling the workers of Knott's and Disney. They're in hot water over the lack of common ground on the guidelines.

wahoo skipper said:
...let's backtrack to January or February when he told Woodworth how bad this really was...but didn't tell anyone else.

Oh, c'mon, that's simply not true! The White House did, in fact, tell other people how bad it was:

The president’s aides appeared to be giving wealthy party donors an early warning of a potentially impactful contagion at a time when Mr. Trump was publicly insisting that the threat was nonexistent.

Jeff said:

I imagine it's going to get worse to the north in short order, because eating on patios is going to be a non-starter.

It's not that eating on patios will be a non-starter, it's that the patios will be patios in name only. Around here, they've already started putting up the annual windows/walls/etc. to make the patios both bearable to dine in during the cold months, and effectively no different than the restaurant itself as far as being a great vector for infection.

It's going to be hot in there already. Heat kills viruses...

Viruses live in your body at 98+ degrees. You think the interior of a room will be hotter than that?

At least by then the risk is going to be lower.

The ambient temperature has very little effect on this virus relative to the corresponding changes in human behavior (meeting in well ventilated areas vs. unventilated areas).