Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

I got 89th out of 100 in Orange County, which means if Jeff doesn't check the health conditions box I'll be back to dry humping on the beach before he is. I'd better start thawing out my tits from the other day at Magic Kingdom to get ready.

All these years of gaining weight is finally paying off.

I'm glad y'all live in Orange County because my fatness got me 11th in Lake County!

Years of training at the gravy buffet are about to pay off for all of us.

Is this when we bring back the "FastPass is immoral" discussion?

There's certainly an untapped market for it.

I'm 86th of 100 in this scenario. Anyone wanna let me cut in front of them, then I'll let you cut back in front of me?

Otherwise I'll have to cancel this damn cruise.

Edit: if I was still a fatty I'd be 28th of 100. They're opening a Popeye's across from work... looks like I have my mission laid out for me.

If you want to skip the line you just need to be rich or well connected.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/03/how-rich-and-privileged-can-ski...-vaccines/

Or just be in the same group classification as the rich/well connected. The "essential" determination was totally political in terms of shutdowns. As soon as word spread that there would be shutdown orders (and in reality most were really shutdown suggestions with no consequences for non-compliance), large numbers of people starting lobbying to be on the "essential" lists. I expect there to be a lot of politics involved in vaccine distribution.

So far the willingness to take action (at all levels of government) has been spotty at best. Large numbers of politicians have very little in the way of spines to make any true hard choices (given the nature of politicians, I don't think that is a surprise). CDC recently recommended to state officials to bypass the politicians in their state to do what they thought necesary. But health officials are appointed by politicians in the state. Am Acton as the director of Ohio's Department of Health was in essence forced out.

Follow the experts is more theory/abstract than reality given the nature of the processes involved.

That's speaks to a larger point. What will states require in terms of verification of your status in the first groups? Will you need a doctor's note stating you have a particular condition that puts you at high risk? If so, you are potentially limiting roll out to the communities that have less access to health care and consequently have had worse outcomes. If not, the only thing stopping someone from lying and saying they have asthma or diabetes to skip the line is a sense of morality. With the potential to save your life I think many would throw out their integrity to jump ahead. I'm sure there's a slider for that too.

Mulfinator said:

There's certainly an untapped market for it.

If this thread could support it, it would already have been discussed.

Can’t find a story online, but I heard on the news tonight that the Cuyahoga County Coroner (Cleveland, for you non-Ohioans) has placed an order for refrigerated trucks because he thinks he might need them soon...

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/oh-cuyahoga/cuyahoga...utive-says

Article on who to vaccinate:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/health/coronavirus-vaccine-acip-nurs...index.html

Lord Gonchar said:
With that said, if you're out, wear a mask. It's not that difficult. It's so easy that I can barely fill up a hand with the number of bare faces I've seen in the past month or so. (outside of places it's been deemed acceptable such as restaurants)

Jeff said:
I think any anecdote from someone not living in a primarily rural or minority community isn't seeing how poorly things are going in those places. It's not the well-off city folk or those of us among the McMansions that are seeing the outbreaks right now. That's not intended to be political, that's just objectively where things are worst right now.

I just wanted to go back and hit this point one more time because, believe it or not, Ohio has a Retail Compliance Unit.

On 12/3 their findings showed that since they've been counting:

Customers properly wearing masks: 93.2%
Employees properly wearing mask: 93.7%
Retail without Social Distancing infractions: 94.1%

In the last week the numbers are higher.

That's higher proper usage rates than seat belts. 😃

RideMan said:

Can’t find a story online, but I heard on the news tonight that the Cuyahoga County Coroner (Cleveland, for you non-Ohioans) has placed an order for refrigerated trucks because he thinks he might need them soon...

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

Stark County got ours last week. Facebook experts assured us all, though, that it has nothing to do with Covid-19.

And everything to do with that big Side O Beef truck sale rolling through town next week.
But seriously- are there actually people who think it’s for something else? Like what?

I also share in the observation that compliance with masking and social distancing is high. I also observe that cases and deaths are climbing like crazy. All eyes are on the rural areas where it seems to be out of control. Are those the people who still refuse to believe this is real and that simple measures won’t help?

It's weird just how regional it is. One of my former coworkers went to a high school sporting event in Volusia County (northeast of Orlando, including Daytona) yesterday, to find a gym full of people not wearing masks at all. She was from the visiting team, and ordinarily in her home gym, it's strict mask enforcement, bleacher rows taped off, etc.

The inconsistency though explains why it's getting so bad though. There's clearly a threshold, a slider, if you will, where non-compliance of the basic mitigation efforts that we know work are rendered useless when some portion of the population isn't doing it.

Diana is going back to work tomorrow, for what the arts center is calling the "front yard festival" series. It's what you've seen in other places... outdoor performances with people spread out in little pods. It's counter-intuitive, but this sort of things logically makes sense and is low-risk, but private dinner parties are not. Anywhere there is active enforcement as a condition of participation also seems to make a difference.

RCMAC said:

All eyes are on the rural areas where it seems to be out of control. Are those the people who still refuse to believe this is real and that simple measures won’t help?

I was emailing a friend from college who is currently living in very rural and very red Northwest Pennsylvania, and the short answer to this question is yes. Trump says it's an overblown flu, plus he caught it and recovered. She says they all see it truly as a political issue and believe our freedom and rights and way of life are truly in jeopardy. The attitude there is that "nobody is going to tell me what to do" and I guess the suggestions to limit Thanksgiving gatherings really put a lot of people over the edge. People that would not have had gatherings outside of 3-4 people anyway intentionally got together or went to the local bar just because freedom.

Ok. Now I’m left to wonder what the scientists had to gain by pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes like that.

Trump missed his chance at the very beginning of this. If back in January he had just said to everyone “Look folks, we have proof that something bad is coming and I need your help to lick this. I need every one of us to wear a mask- in fact, we’ll mail you one. Put this mask on everywhere you go and don’t take it off until I say so. There’s science behind it and we need to stop it- believe me.” (I threw a Trumpism in there for accuracy)
By doing this he could’ve kept politics out of it and divisiveness at bay. He would have his lay-down-and-die supporters on board as well as his detractors who trust and believe the science. He already had people who were willing to do anything for him. If it had worked he may have won re-election. Hell, I may have voted for him myself.
Instead he could only think of what he could do to keep his base active and on his side, and it turned out to be the most harmful thing anyone has ever done to our country.
Joe is planning a 100 Days of Mask Wearing or something. A great idea, if not too late. And watch and see if the anti-mask brigade gets even stronger, just out of spite and loyalty to Trump.
I was able to relax (safely, of course) about covid for a minute. I actually felt like things were getting in control and the end was down the road, maybe, but at least in sight. Now I finally have so many friends that have either had it or have lost parents, spouses, or family members to it. It seems like it gets closer every day and I’m back to being afraid, just short of panic stricken.
Lord help us.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/04/world/europe/europe-...eaths.html