Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

So I figured I would throw this data point in here.

I was talking to one of my coworkers this morning, she isn't feeling well, coughing and such. Wanted to go in for possible treatment if necessary. She spoke to her doctor but was advised that unless she exhibits all the symptoms of the virus that they wouldn't see her for it since they are very busy at this time. She was advised to rest and self medicate.

Instead she is at work today, because she can't afford to sit at home, but she is also worried that the decision might be made for her since they just laid off more than half of our building effective today.

And those are all reasons it's going to get so much worse here.

Jeff said:

Yep, and Italy is a much smaller country. It's going to get super ugly. Here's the breakdown by country. Our trend is looking more like Italy than China or South Korea.

So I'm looking at these nice graphs and charts, and they all look exactly the same. But they aren't, all the ones at the bottom have been scale adjusted. To someone who glances they would think holy crap, everywhere it is exploding, but it isn't. Italy at 2,943 per day looks similar to the U.S. at 946 per day, which also looks like Hungary, at a whopping 6 per day.

Also, China at the top that nice big flatter graph, that's great, but the graph is squashed by that one data point which might be an anomaly. Remove that one data point and you have a nice clear spike which peaked in the low 4000's per day.

What I see here is that everyone everywhere is affected, it comes, it spreads, it peaks, and then begins to fall. South Korea is the only exception, they had less overall cases reported, and less of a spike than anyone else. That could be due to proper management of the situation, or it could be due to alteration of the data.

Jeff said:

Our trend is looking more like Italy than China or South Korea.

Right now the trend looks that way. We aren't going to know for another month at this point if the level of measures being taken in the States and elsewhere is working on containing the actual virus. We now have the luxury of China's data after the curve, which was able to average down the crazy peak of new cases in mid February.

More importantly is that Italy now has more deaths than mainland China due to Coronavirus according the Johns Hopkins chart. I think that should be the more important statistic. I still maintain the very nature of our economy is going to make the virus be more widespread, but it remains to be seen if that is going to mean more deaths. We simply won't know until we get past this.

On Wednesday the company I work for suddenly changed their no working from home policy and sent us home with our PC's to work from home.

Kings Island closed until Mid May

Carowinds closed until Mid May

I'm glad they made the call now. It may not happen, but it's at least got a chance unlike April.

Cedar Point is also on that list. "Hoping for mid-may", with extra days and benefits added for season passholders when the park does indeed open.

More info here.

CP can barely staff the days on the calendar as it is.

Also, the entitled Karens of the world are in full "I demand a refund" mode on the announcements, especially parks like Carowinds and Kings Dominion that are losing a minimum of 2 months.

I'm not sure when they would be planning for these extra days. Maybe they're thinking of adding another week to the calendar. Too early to even really speculate at this point.

The emphasis on gold passes sure is going to backfire in a way no one could have predicted. The seasonal operators are going to be in trouble.

I expect parks like Cedar Point, Kings Island, Dollywood, Busch Williamsburg to have a lean few years after this in terms of expansion, upgrades, etc. But the smaller parks and operators that can't afford to weather a hard few years may be in much bigger trouble.

Jeff, in your mind why would this be worse than reliance on single-day visitors. They aren't planning trips either.

They're holding cash they will likely have to give back. It's an accounting nightmare, depending on how they intend to recognize the revenue. Even if they only miss a month, how many people will feel the value isn't there and wouldn't pay the full amount? (I think those people are crazy cheap, but that's the same reason I think they shouldn't undervalue admission.)

TheMillenniumRider said:

She was advised to rest and self medicate.

So, Jack Daniel's?

TheMillenniumRider said:

So I'm looking at these nice graphs and charts, and they all look exactly the same. But they aren't, all the ones at the bottom have been scale adjusted. To someone who glances they would think holy crap, everywhere it is exploding, but it isn't. Italy at 2,943 per day looks similar to the U.S. at 946 per day, which also looks like Hungary, at a whopping 6 per day.

Because the point is not the absolute number of cases. It's not even the rate of daily cases. It's the exponential shape of the curve. (If you're a calculus student, it's the second derivative and the fact that the second derivative is itself growing and not constant. I spent most of my virtual calculus class this week talking about this very thing). The difference between Hungary and Italy is less than 2 weeks if they are on the same curve. Now admittedly, it's very hard to tell whether they are when there's only 6 cases, but by the time there are 100 cases, Pandora's box is already open. In fact, it may already be too late when there's only 6 cases (because of the implication that there's probably 100 undiagnosed cases).

That's what's so scary. The only thing that matters is whether the virus is spreading exponentially or not. If the virus is allowed to spread unchecked at an exponential rate, the difference between Italy (where 59.9 out of 60 million people are still asymptomatic) and complete and total collapse of all health care provision is on the order of one or two weeks. This is the important fact that most people miss because it's so startling. It's the lily pad analogy in Jeff's link. If the R0 is 2.2, then the last 20 million Italians who would get sick, would all get sick in the last week or so.

This is the chart that matters. Play the animation. Notice how close behind Italy, pretty much everybody is regardless of the actual count of infections.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/covid19-coronavirus-countrie...trajectory

ApolloAndy said:

If you're a calculus student, it's the second derivative and the fact that the second derivative is itself growing and not constant.

I love a good discussion about concavity and points of inflection!

Yes. Points of inflection were the main topic of discussion and why, in this case, they are basically the sign that things "aren't quite as bad as they were yesterday."

RCMAC said:

from Jan 24, 2020: And movie theaters, and busses and trains, and the grocery store, and...
What are we supposed to do? Cancel our lives as we know it, stay in our rooms and wash our hands like crazy? This is very concerning to me.

yes, yes you are.

(that wasn't a criticism, just a reference to how the world has turned upside down in two months)

I seen it a-comin’!
And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. This cooking at home is either gonna put me in better shape or make me really fat. TBD.