Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

ApolloAndy said:

TL;DR: Why are we so satisfied to just live with this thing in perpetuity? Given that we currently have a vaccine that works against all known strains, why aren't we going for herd immunity and eradication?

Because 'Merican Freedom, that's why. It's our right to refuse the vaccine that will restore rights we like to pretend we've had taken away.

Lord Gonchar said:

Just checked the Ohio dashboard for the first time in forever.

Don't know if I'm elated or gassy.

I love Patti.

I like the Wizard of Oz.

Lord Gonchar said:

Because, and I'm sure this is likely to be an unpopular opinion, once the vaccine has been available to everyone with no supply issues and 30 days have passed (enough time to get both doses), if you aren't vaccinated by then - that's on you.

When do we take the masks off and start standing next to each other again? If we can't reach herd immunity through vaccinations and people are refusing the vaccine, then I guess we reach herd immuntiy the hard way.

(I'm aware that there are some people who can't get the vaccine due to other health issues, I need to clarify that because this is CoasterBuzz. However...)

I feel the same way. At this point if there's a cure and you don't want it?

My thought exactly. There is no reason for any public venue to be in the "get your vaccine before you come here" business. Just remind people that you're in a facility where people may or may not be sick, and it's on you to protect yourself since there is a readily available and highly effective vaccination to help do that for you.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

That's the short-sighted, selfish thinking that has led to the outbreak being as bad as it is. How many ways does it have to be said that "protecting yourself" is only half of the equation?

Even public schools which require vaccinations for everything else?

Vaccines are not 100% effective so it's not just about "each person protecting themselves" (I've been beating this same drum about masks, distancing, lockdowns, and basically everything for 10 months). Our choices impact other people and therefore we have some obligation to them beyond just our own personal preference. Especially, when that impact has an exponential effect.

Edit: Um...yeah. What Jeff said.

We have been know to don these shirts in Disney parks. (They weren't totally iron'd on when we took this picture).

Not gonna lie. I had no idea what the reference was.

I looked it up.

My fault for inadventently invoking Disney.

(and then cleverly using another Disney reference for the reaction gif)

But I thought we were talking about vaccine here? A vaccine differs from the other mitigation strategies we've been talking about in that it *specifically protects the vaccinated*. Heck, I am even seeing people make the claim that being vaccinated *doesn't* protect anybody else, the theory being that a vaccinated person could somehow get, replicate, and spread virus but not get sick because of the vaccine. Personally I think that's a highly doubtful scenario, but still, with regard specifically to vaccines, it seems pointless to get into the whole business of vaccine requirements and the like for most organizations. At some point it has to become one's own responsibility to take precautions to protect himself instead of relying on everyone else to adhere to restrictions for his benefit.

When it's available, if you can, get the damn shot.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I agree with your conclusion: “when the shot is available, get it” but I’m not sure I follow any of the steps you took to get there. The point isn’t that businesses should be enforcing vaccine mandates to encourage people to get vaccines. It’s because they should want to be a place where the risk of transmission is as minimal as possible - just like mask requirements, distancing, etc. I mean, in some ideal world where people are totally separated and don’t interact or where vaccines are 100% effective, I don’t care if you wear a mask or get a vaccine or distance or dry hump. But as long as you’re breathing out the air that I’m breathing in and there’s some non-zero chance that what you do will lead to me getting infected, it doesn’t seem unreasonable for there to be some discussion about our obligation to each other.

Like, we’ve been doing this without controversy for decades with schools.

I get his point. There is going to be a time at some future point when I can readily get a vaccine. When the time comes then no one anywhere should be concerned about everyone else anymore. If the vaccine does its job the recipient will be immune. Thus if you are worried about getting sick get vaccinated.

My obligation to you is of no concern if you are able to make yourself immune.

Technically, the people that can't get the vaccine, due to allergies or whatever, need everybody around them to be vaccinated to protect them. So it's still good neighbor to get vaccinated for others.

From the Cleveland Clinic (Yes, you can still transmit COVID-19 to others even if you are vaccinated):

Despite the fact that you may be protected we can’t tell if you are still at risk of being an asymptomatic carrier and have the ability to carry the virus and spread the virus to others. So you can’t assume that just because you get the vaccine that you are both protected and no longer capable of carrying the virus asymptomatically and spreading it to others.

Can we pump the breaks on the entitlement and listen to the scientists, please? The cultural refusal to do so is why it's going to take longer than it had to in order to get through this. Let's not make it worse.

So when is the risk acceptable?

Not only in general, but also specifically to you guys that always seem to have a "yeah, but..." for every time we take a step closer to just being able to move on.

What is the finish line? Someone define it for me.

I think most of us would agree that the finish line would be when things feel as close to, say, December 2020. No masks, no social distancing stickers, and nothing with regards to Covid-19 altering one's daily choices in any recognizable way.

Well first let's consider the first part of what would be a finish line; I would argue the foundation for such a line would be when there actually is enough vaccines for everyone in the United States. I am not sure if this has changed since then, but in December Moncef Slaoui (chief science advisor) said around June.

By that time, we have a few different things coming together. 1) the obvious, more people will have been vaccinated. I have no interest in making a graph or crunching numbers to figure out percentages, but it's fair to say that 6 months from now that increase will be significant. 2) unfortunately, a fairly significant increase in diagnoses (and deaths) will also have occurred, and 3) time. The biggest reason I hear for people not wanting to get the vaccine is because they "don't want to be first". Well; OK. By June enough time will have passed for more people to see that it doesn't cause autism or make you drop dead, leading to another bump in willingness to get vaccinated.

Mitigating the impact of 1 and 2, though, are three very important questions we simply don't know yet; a) how long is the vaccination effective? Is this going to be an annual thing worked into our yearly flu shots? (the virus is here to stay).....b) how long and to what degree does having had Covid-19 give one protection? and c) will there be mutations that will require alterations to our vaccines?

It's not as easy pill to swallow, but I don't see any path to crossing a "finish line" until we hit that 70-80% vaccination rate.

If requiring it in schools (at least) speeds up the rate of getting there, I'm all for it. If you are able to and choose not to get it by the time we can all collectively agree it's OK, you are no different than the anti-vaxxer that simply refuses to vaccinate their kids because you put more faith in Jenny McCarthy than the scientific method. You're merely contributing to the delay in all of us reaching that finish line as a society.

Part of being "in this together" is getting the vaccine.

Lord Gonchar said:

So when is the risk acceptable?

I don't know if that's the right question. I think the question is, "At that point is the pandemic measurably receding at the optimal pace, and unlikely to reverse direction?" And there isn't a simple answer to that, but I think some of those points above are factors. It will vary by region.

At the very least, hospitalizations, transmission rates and positive test counts have to be in a place where it's "unlikely" you will contract or pass on the virus in public. I'll let the experts tell me what "unlikely" is, but mathematically, we're looking at the opposite of exponential spread. If 1 in 100 people are vulnerable, and that one in turn can only encounter 1 in 200 people vulnerable, it'll burn out pretty fast.

That's what herd immunity is, but as we've learned it's hard to model what that is.

This is where I'm coming from: there's a subset of people who simply refuse to get vaccinated. We can't mask and distance and never travel forever because they're obstinate douchebags.

What Gonch said makes sense to me in this situation. I'm not saying get the shot then immediately go lick rando's faces, but once this is available to everyone in the country that is willing to get it, then a month later when all those people have their second dose, what do we do from that point? That's the time where in my mind, you're on your own if you refuse the vaccine.

TheMillenniumRider said:

If the vaccine does its job the recipient will be immune.

This is simply untrue, I addressed it, and it's the entire point. The vaccine is only 95% effective and may not prevent transmission. That 95% sounds like a lot, and it certainly is a lot and I'm certainly going to take advantage of it, as soon as I can, but it does not decouple your actions from my risk. I don't know how I can say this any more clearly: "Even if I get a vaccine, your actions still affect me."

I'm actually not proposing any different endgame than Gonch's. Whatever date after everyone who wants a vaccine has had the opportunity to get one I'm going to take off my mask and go to Disney World. Hell, I'm considering (but probably won't) going to Disney World as soon as I get the vaccine (1b for being a teacher), though my last paragraph makes a strong case against doing so. I just wholeheartedly reject the idea that, once the vaccine is widely available we no longer have any obligation to each other and it is of no consequence to me whether you lick randos, whether you dry hump at spring break (second annual), or specifically whether you get the vaccine.

It's the same argument that's been trotted out and shot down a million times about masks: "Well, if your mask works, why do you care if I wear one?" Because my mask only works most of the time. "If you get the vaccine, why do you care if I get one?" Because my vaccine only works most of the time.

So as a society, just like we require vaccines to send kids to school and we require TB screens to work as a teacher, a nurse, an assisted living worker, etc. I don't see why that wouldn't be part of the end game: "If you want to send your kids to school, they must have covid vaccines. If you want to be a teacher, you must get a covid vaccine. If you want to be a nurse, you must get a covid vaccine. If you want to work in an assisted living facility, you must get a covid vaccine. etc. etc."