Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

It’s especially disheartening for us Old Gays who learned a lesson by somehow miraculously surviving the HIV/aids epidemic. I also read that story about the Miami circuit party and shook my head. It seems the youth of today learned nothing from our fight, our struggles, and our heartaches. It’s not like we haven’t stood as reminders.
I read some of the entitled comments from spring-breakers and had the same reaction. We were at Clearwater Beach toward the end of February and here I am still counting days from that trip, wondering if we didn’t make a mistake somewhere along there. And I just recently thought that the place must be a ghost town by now. Guess not.
I just can’t believe after all the s**t I’ve lived through that something like this has come along. There’s a certain surrealness to everything now that I just can’t get out of my head- it’s like never waking up from a nightmare.

I have seen plenty of discussion regarding public health so far, but what about the damage that is being done to businesses globally? I just envision this disease passing by, and then everyone is going to focus on unemployment, finances, and the economy. Then all we will hear about is how bad things are, yet we are actively destroying our economy right now. At what point do we say it's time to get back to our daily lives?

If everyone is concerned with overloading the healthcare system, and we want to "flatten the curve" then we are just taking more time away from normal activity. You can't just stop all activity for a month or two and then resume where we left off.

I guess maybe the question I am asking is it really better to save the healthcare system at the cost of just about every other industry?

”saving the healthcare industry” is nothing about money or bailouts or whatever you’re on about. It’s about keeping the hospitals from being flooded with people all at once and causing a shortage of available help/care/meds/supplies.

Correct, but to save the healthcare system everyone is told to stay home. Which then nukes basically everything else in the process.

TheMillenniumRider said:

I guess maybe the question I am asking is it really better to save the healthcare system at the cost of just about every other industry?

Replace "the healthcare system" with "human lives".

Yeah, I was waiting for that response, let me ask this. Would you be willing to lose your job tomorrow in the name of saving lives?

It's a valid concern. I get that it's necessary to flatten the curve to mitigate ICU overload, but the health effects from COVID-19 are the least of our problems in the long term.

This is the kind of thing that scares me far more than the virus itself: https://www.accesscorp.com/study-40-percent-businesses-fail-reopen-disaster/

According to a report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 40 percent of businesses do not reopen following a disaster. On top of that, another 25 percent fail within one year.

If you think that getting past this initial time gets your company out of the woods, think again. The United States Small Business Administration found that over 90 percent of companies fail within two years of being struck by a disaster.

A friend of mine attended an online conference yesterday and relayed similar, but even less optimistic statistics:

40-65% of small businesses will not reopen after a disaster. 90% of small businesses fail within a year if they are closed for 5 days or more.

Not sure what the answer is, because I'm all for staying in my house (as much as I can) until this blows over, but admittedly I'm currently not being negatively affected by this pandemic, thanks in part to having a career in the healthcare industry (specifically telemedicine, for which the demand has skyrocketed in the last couple weeks). The economy has already taken a hit, but the longer we're on "lockdown," the longer it will take to recover...and based on history, many (if not most) small businesses never will.

The whole reason I bring this up and try and shift the discussion in this direction is that the industry and common ground we all share with one another on this site is an industry which is getting hit extremely hard right now. Thankfully many smaller parks were still in offseason, but opening day was on the horizon for many places. The season is limited, and some parks may not be able to afford a huge loss to their attendance and weather the storm. I'm sure everyone here has seen the stock numbers for the various smaller theme park chains. Disney and Universal will survive since their business is so diversified, however the regionals might have a much tougher time.

The reaction to all of this seems like people went from 0-100 overnight. No real thought was put into how to respond. The government is supposed to analyze the options, think it out logically, and make the best decision for the country, but let's be honest, that never happens. The general public thinks "save lives, stay home" but I would bet a large majority haven't really thought about the long term ramifications of that decision either.

Don't get me wrong either, I am not just thinking solely about the theme park industry. Travel and leisure always take a huge hit because they are mostly discretionary, but when you start taking large scale losses to the stock market, everyone starts pulling out because of the almighty dollar, further exacerbating the problem. That creates a situation that affects everyone.

If you think the reaction is sudden, see the above video regarding exponential spread.

TheMillenniumRider said:

I guess maybe the question I am asking is it really better to save the healthcare system at the cost of just about every other industry?

Dead people suck at spending money, so there's that.

If there's no effort to control infection, the infection doesn't stop until there's a way to treat it, which at best is a year away. There isn't a shortcut, that's just something we have to come to terms with. The collapse of the healthcare system isn't about a particular industry. The intent isn't to "save" it in the economical sense, the intent is to keep it functioning. If it breaks, you're looking at destabilization of society.

Jeff said:

The intent isn't to "save" it in the economical sense, the intent is to keep it functioning. If it breaks, you're looking at destabilization of society.

I feel like there is a scale right now, at one end total isolation in order to prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed, but killing the economy. The other end is BAU, which leads to collapse of the healthcare system but salvages the economy. I feel like either end of the scale leads to mass disruption of society. It is hard to envision since it is uncharted territory.Is there a middle ground on that scale that is currently unexplored? As with most anything in this world, if you operate on the extreme ends of the bell curve, the outcomes are an anomaly. But it feels like we are doing exactly that. To prevent overload to the healthcare system, should we have quarantined only the most at risk groups, and let the remainder of society carry on as usual? Is that even a possibility?

Jeff said:

If there's no effort to control infection, the infection doesn't stop until there's a way to treat it, which at best is a year away.

I would think that once everyone gets it, and either dies or survives, it would stop on its own as there is no one else to trasmit it to.

Assuming no genetic modification or mutation.

TheMillenniumRider said:

Yeah, I was waiting for that response, let me ask this. Would you be willing to lose your job tomorrow in the name of saving lives?

This has to be the worst question I've ever been asked, including interviews.

I work in the corporate office of a multinational food/beverage service company. More specifically, I'm in the sector that deals primarily with providing that food and beverage to office workers. Even more specifically, we provide food and beverage for free to the employees (paid by the company).

My job is currently on the line. While I might be considered "essential" at this point, that changes daily. The only thing my department can do is keep working and providing the same level of work we've done in the past.

But to ask if I'm willing to bring all of our furloughed and laid-off employees back to work, along with the hundreds of thousands of employees at companies who don't need our service now, all so I can keep my job - in the chance that even one of them (or their family member or loved one) dies because of it? That's such a selfish question, to put my self-interest ahead of all of them, for the sake of a few dollars in my pocket.

Yes. I'm willing to lose my job to save other lives.

Look, it wasn't meant to be a great question, but a brutally honest one, one to hopefully make people take a step back and look at what the reality is for a good number of people right now.

Everyone has a trade off, somewhere the line will be drawn, for each person that line is drawn in different places. But in the end self-preservation and self-interest will always win, if it didn't we wouldn't exist as a species.

Advances in society have provided cushion to this line, people can choose to give up some personal benefit in order to help others, yet still have a comfortable existence. However, peel back these layers, and remove this cushion, and bring the decisions to some really core needs and the self-preservation and self-interest will come back.

Edit: If you ever want to see altruism thrown out the window, come on down to Florida during hurricane season when we are in the cone. Go wait in line for gas, or try to get water from the store. It's a very interesting case study in self-preservation vs. helping others.

I don't think it's a bad question at all. I think it is THE question to be asking. (and exactly what I was alluding to with my posts a few pages back referring to an imaginary disruption/death slider)

There is absolutely a point where saving lives becomes not worth it...for the same 'greater good' that we use to justify saving them at this point.

Lord Gonchar said:

There is absolutely a point where saving lives becomes not worth it...for the same 'greater good' that we use to justify saving them at this point.

There should never be a point in which you have to question your employment over the life of someone else.

But it's a cosmically stupid question, because there is no sliding scale between preserving life and the economy. That's what people aren't getting. Mass casualties have an insane economic impact, and sick or dead people can't work or spend money. The cost is higher in every measurable way the more people get sick and/or die. Do you really think that keeping Applebees open and you going there will have a better outcome? There is no "them" when it comes to saving people. I don't know if it's rooted in the hubris of nationalism or millennial entitlement or what, but this idea that any individual anywhere in the world is not a factor in this is mindbogglingly absurd.

Math, my friends... it's just math.

I'm not saying we're there or even close or realistically will be.

But there has to be a point where upholding things is more important than savings lives.

Realistically, it's a balance.

Dead people don't buy ****. Life sucks if you burn everything to the ground.

Do you really think that keeping Applebees open and you going there will have a better outcome?

Obviously not. Given the condescending nature of the rhetorical question, you know that.

But at some point trading a few lives to avoid driving the country (or world) into an extended depression or worse might be worth it.

(and, for the record, Applebee's closing is one of the benefits of this whole thing)

But what do you possibly think that you can do when every person around you is potentially infected?

I've said it before, but the only way out of this is widespread testing (still not nearly a thing) and people staying the **** home for the next few weeks.

I was just about to post this because Gonch's reply made it come to mind:

Also, looking at it from another perspective, my wife used to work at a restaurant as a server some time ago, she still keeps in contact with a few friends from over there. They just closed the business for 30 days, everyone is sent home, no pay. Some of those employees can afford it, and others cannot.

By staying home, and refraining from contact, we are helping to save lives. But on the converse, by staying home and refraining from spending, we are taking money from others and potentially causing them to no have food on the table for their families, or potentially lose their homes. It can be argued that whatever decision we make we are hurting others, just depends on which way we are hurting them.

Jeff, you are absolutely right, it is simple math in the end, you hit the nail on the head. A life has number attached to it. My continued existence and participation in the economy has an absolute dollar value attached to it. If I die tomorrow, then my dollar value to society disappears.

You said it yourself, sick or dead people can't work or spend money. But the vast majority right now are choosing (or being forced) to not work or spend money. Every single one of us is a factor in this.

Point being, you cannot simply pause the economy for a few months while we let a virus run it's course. This is creating a snowball effect, at some point this snowball is going to become so big that we cannot stop it from rolling downhill. There is absolutely a sliding scale, at some point ceasing to participate in the economy will create a fallout that could very well cost us more than it would have to let lives be lost.

I don't have the math, this isn't a localized disaster, this is something with effects reaching every place on the globe. If someone somewhere has the numbers then we could easily make a decision and say here is the breakeven point of saving lives vs. saving the economy. The problem is that no one anywhere has those numbers, nor do I think it would ever be possible to calculate them until after everything is settled and the situation analyzed.