Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

My uneducated prediction is that we may see a spike shortly after Super Bowl Sunday.

I think that's a reasonable prediction. The further we get away from Christmas, the more improvement we might see, but unfortunately that's just because of proximity to a major social event, not better behavior.

I have two competing theories.

One is that based on a 70% undercount, which seems high but which also correlates nicely with the results of research published by The Ohio State University back in July, Ohio now has an infection rate in excess of 25% of the population. Herd immunity is expected to happen at about 65%-70% either through infection or through vaccination. Ohio’s vaccination dashboard shows no completed vaccinations yet, but even the 3% or so with a single shot are less likely to become infected. Herd immunity isn’t a binary condition; it strengthens over time as the percentage of unavailable hosts increases. I hope that what we are seeing here is the virus beginning to burn itself out.

That’s what I hope is going on. What I fear is my other theory.

The sudden increase in cases began on September 4 and peaked on November 30. Nothing happened at the end of August that explains the surge, and nothing happened at the end of November to explain the peak. Except both of those dates correspond roughly to the start and end of the fall and winter school term. Schools have been understandably reluctant to go back full time and in person until now. But that’s about to change, and my fear is that the full school restart will touch off another surge.

I guess we will find out soon whether my hopes or my fears are well-founded.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

RideMan said:

I Nothing happened at the end of August that explains the surge, and nothing happened at the end of November to explain the peak.

Except for, you know, the millions of people celebrating Thanksgiving.

coming up on the one year anniversary of this thread. Shocking and yet predictable. Hopefully the new administration can facilitate efforts where the prior one failed.

I'm not about to try and predict when the California parks will open but I'm expecting it to be no sooner than Easter. You can forget Broadway until the Fall, and probably the same for Cruises. Certainly the Alaska season will be scrapped, but I can see some restart to the caribbean market (even if short 3-4 days only)

Fun said:

RideMan said:

I Nothing happened at the end of August that explains the surge, and nothing happened at the end of November to explain the peak.

Except for, you know, the millions of people celebrating Thanksgiving.

You misunderstand what I was saying...

I'm using the onset-adjusted data that the State of Ohio publishes daily in a massive .CSV file. So going not by the daily reported data, some of which represents cases that are *months* old, but by the actual reported onset of symptoms or the date of the positive test (usually reported several days later). To smooth out the day-of-week effects, I am looking at a 7-day trailing average; that is, an average of new cases for "today" and the previous six days. In greater detail than before, the pattern looks like this--

From the onset of the pandemic, we saw the 7-day case average rise slowly but steadily with the shutdown happening just as the 7-day average hit 100 cases per day on 3/14. The rise accelerated: 200 on 3/18, 300 on 3/27, then the effects of the shutdown hit...we didn't hit 400 cases per day until 4/13. Then there is a bump in the data caused by an outbreak in Marion Correctional, after which the numbers stabilized right around 600/day from 4/24 to 5/21, actually falling into the 400/day range through 6/15. As the State started to reopen, cases climbed slowly again, this time quickly from 500/day to the low 1000's on 6/27. We peaked at 1,545/day on 7/15 and started falling again, bottoming out at 884 cases/day on 8/20 and then bouncing back to hover right around 1,000 cases/day until 9/27. Had the mid-August pattern continued, we would have been approaching a zero-crossing in mid-November.

Beginning on 9/27 (meaning the trend started on 9/20) the 7-day case average rose rapidly from 1,024 on 9/26 to 1,104 on 9/28 to 1,241 on 10/02; 1,314 on 10/04; 2,015 on 10/15; 3,032 on 10/27; 4,109 on 11/2; 5,262 on 11/5; 6,226 on 11/08; 7,203 on 11/10; and finally starting to show signs of peaking on 11/14 at 8,112.

The average continued to climb: 8,363 on 11/17; 8,732 on 11/20 and a quick peak at 9,258 on 11/25 right *before* Thanksgiving. The absolute peak of new cases hit on 11/30, the Monday after Thanksgiving, at 13,354 cases. The 7-day average peaked on 12/04 at 10,073 cases/day.

Now you would expect that those thousands of people celebrating Thanksgiving would lead to a continued rise in cases, with Christmas and New Year's Eve exacerbating the problem. But that's not what happened. Since 11/30, the numbers have been dropping. Slowly at first, finally dropping into the mid-8000's by 12/15, then more rapidly. 8,042 on 12/17; reaching a nadir of 6,173 on 12/25. Right after Christmas there was a brief rise again, plateauing at around 7,500 and peaking on 1/8 at 8,128. Since then the average has been dropping steadily for the last 15 days; yesterday's average was 3,730 although that will probably go up a little in the next week or two.

So...what happened to cause the sudden rise in cases from the end of September to the end of November...and while we did see a slight rise in the numbers after each of the winter holidays, none was enough to take us back up to the peak numbers that we actually saw *before* Thanksgiving. Why did those numbers peak right at Thanksgiving, then start to drop precipitously afterward, even through the Christmas holiday; in fact Christmas Day marked the lowest average case count since November 7. (We are now down to average case counts similar to those we had at the end of October).

It wasn't amusement parks, bars, restaurants, or retail. It doesn't map to the mask order, the early bar closure, or the curfew. The timing isn't right. Heck, the timing is still off by a month for it to have been schools. But in terms of timing, only schools explain the peak that began in September and ended in November just as the winter recess was starting.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I have little doubt that schools of all levels being open/live is the only answer you need to your puzzle. With schools came activities...with activities came parents...and I can tell you from first-hand experience that some activities were really well regulated, while others pretended there wasn't anything going on; a complete mixed bag.

That said, I am both teaching live and sending my daughters to school live...as well as keeping them in their respective sports.

But also keep in mind the "side activities" that comes with schools being open...and not immediately when the doors open up.

There were many events we chose not to do, one of which was a "potluck" for our daughter's cross country team. The event drew about 100 people all indoors with no masks...parents, kids, etc...nope. Now imagine little events like this for different activities steadily happening across the state once school opened...not to mention the casual get togethers and steadily increasing contacts between kids/parents/coaches/teachers, etc...

The timing fits perfectly.

I didn't do nearly the analysis that Dave did, but I did notice the surge across climates, cultures, and countries, even those that don't celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving. One thing they do all have in common, though, is the resumption of school, just about 4 weeks before the numbers began to climb monotonically.

CreditWh0re said:

coming up on the one year anniversary of this thread. Shocking and yet predictable.

When you suggested amusement parks in the US may be affected/close/not able to open I admittedly thought it was a significantly dramatic take on it. In mid February I remember a co worker mentioning the Orlando theme parks may have to close for this and I looked at him like he had two heads.

Heck, on March 11th, just an hour or so before that NBA game was cancelled and Trump gave that ridiculous briefing from the Oval Office, I met up with a good friend at Hollywood Studios after work and we took our first ride on Runaway Railway, my first on Smugglers Run, and end of the night walk ons on Tower of Terror, Rock N Roller Coaster, *and* Slinky Dog. I don't think COVID came up once, other than a passing mention when we saw a few extra hand sanitizing stations. We parted, booked a few Fastpasses for another night a couple weeks out at I think Epcot, and I headed home. I listened to the Trump thing on the car ride home and knew then that night at Hollywood Studios was likely my last outing for "a few weeks."

Logically, it seemed that there would be long-term implications, though emotionally I think I was in denial. Lots of "last times" in the spring:

• 2/26: Last theatrical show (Mean Girls, Dr. Phillips Center)
• 3/5: Solo lunch trip to Epcot
• 3/7: Blue Man Group at Universal, met a friend in town for a conference and we were already fist bumping. A day or two later, he would meet someone at the conference who later tested positive for Covid.
• 3/8: Birthday bowling for Simon at Splitsville.
• 3/12: Last meal at a restaurant.
• 3/15: Last fireworks at Magic Kingdom (seen from home)
• 3/18: Bought Diana a bike.
• 3/30: School reopens, a week late after spring break, remote.

I don't think there is any shame in any of us not really taking the magnitude of impact that Covid-19 was going to have seriously. We have never experienced anything like this in our lives, and most likely never will again (although we will all no doubt be a little on edge whenever a new virus appears somewhere around the world).

It's not only been a shock, but also an interesting time to look back at history. It's amazing (although not surprising) to me that there were "anti-maskers" decades ago in this country.

Heck, even when things started to shut down, part of me was still reasoning that sometime in late summer, but certainly by fall and absolutely certainly by the new year we would be back to normalcy.

RideMan said:

But in terms of timing, only schools explain the peak that began in September and ended in November just as the winter recess was starting.

OhioStater said:

I have little doubt that schools of all levels being open/live is the only answer you need to your puzzle.

ApolloAndy said:

One thing they do all have in common, though, is the resumption of school, just about 4 weeks before the numbers began to climb monotonically.

I don't disagree...and I suspected as much 7 weeks ago when Fauci supported keeping schools open and the data supporeted it.

In fact, most of us questioned the expert's decision at that point.

OhioStater said:

I don't think there is any shame in any of us not really taking the magnitude of impact that Covid-19 was going to have seriously. Heck, even when things started to shut down, part of me was still reasoning that sometime in late summer, but certainly by fall and absolutely certainly by the new year we would be back to normalcy.

Totally. All you have to do is go back and read how long I resisted the idea that this would be any different than all the other scares - swine flu, bird flu, ebola...ooogity boogity.

I still think it could have not been...and not in a "we didn't do enough" sort of way. But I'm not going to invoke that discussion.

As far as normalcy? I maintain that things at stately Gonch Manor have been suprisingly normal. We did just about everything we normally would have...just not as much in some cases. I've been to amusement parks, live shows, out to eat, on an airplane, have my kids doing stuff across the globe, etc.

The two big hits for us were that we had to cancel a pretty epic trip to Vegas we had planned for us and a bunch of friends for my wife's B-day (and really, "Oh no. We had to cancel a week of absolute debauchery in a suite overlooking the Vegas strip. Woe is us.") and the ongoing income hit - which has affected our plans with selling our house and building, which would have been happening right about now. But there's even talk of that finally coming to an end.

We have switched to a lot more pickup and delivery of groceries and stuff - but for probably the wrong reasons. I'm not avoiding going into the stores, I'm avoiding wearing a mask as much as possible.

Meh. Whaddaya gonna do? I think that when we're finally past it, it'll be interesting to look back on all of the different paths people took through the whole thing.

Back in March when we thought there were only a few cases in the country (on the day Cedar Point delayed opening, Ohio reported a total of 169 cases. Even with a 70% undercount that's still only 563 cases) it seemed that isolating everybody long enough to get through an infection cycle...about 24 days at most...we would easily contain the virus. We would be completely back to normal with the virus eradicated by Opening Day in mid-May. Isolate everybody long enough for the infected to become symptomatic, let everybody else out again once you know who the sick ones are, problem solved.

It turns out that on March 20, Ohio did not have 169 cases, or even 563 cases. The back-dated data now indicate that there were at least 2,905 cases in Ohio that day, and with the 70% undercount that would be almost 9,700 cases. This thing was already widespread in the commuity before anybody started getting sick with it. The isolation strategy was doomed to fail from the start.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

It also doesn't help that most states opened up everything prematurely, earlier even than the entirely too optimistic federal guidelines.

(Gonch sneaks in so I have to post twice...)

For me the biggest change is that I am working from home, which I absolutely love, and as a consequence my continuous search for better employment has basically stopped cold. Yeah, the raise is nice, but the change in office is the real kicker. Other than that, the primary deviations from normalcy for me are mostly because of my physical mask aversion, and (the really annoying part) the loss of the 24-hour world which has thrown my consumption schedule into massive fits. I work a later-than-typical schedule, with a later-than-typical lunch, so for me lunch is usually around 1:30 and dinner closer to 9pm or later; and I always prefer to do my grocery shopping after dinner, which is hard to do when the world shuts down at 10pm!

(Jeff sneaks in...)

At that point I doubt it made much difference. Had we shut down earlier...which would never have worked because it wasn't obvious that we had a problem...then maybe the shutdown would have worked, and it could have ended after maybe 4 weeks. Instead, what we got was a shutdown that was going on far too long, ruining people's lives, and ultimately was just prolonging the inevitable. By the time we did the shutdown, it was too late for it to work; we would probably have been better off not shutting down, or shutting down more selectively, and seeing roughly the same surge in March that we ended up having in November.

Trouble is, there's no way to test that theory, and besides, hindsight is always...well, you know...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Jeff said:

In software, we call this a race condition... where some state changes before it is consumed by some later code, causing a bug and unexpected results. It's a category of bug that is often difficult to solve.

Thus, Skynet became self aware.

Since everyone has transitioned into a reminiscent state I guess I can offer something up too.

We have a massive amount of cases, exactly what everyone tried to prevent last year. We did not succeed, I truly believe we just drug it out and prolonged it all. I have mentioned before, and was shut down, that would should have just cut off the elderly from the remainder of the world. This would have greatly reduced mortality rates and hospital utilization rates. If Jeff was able to do contact free living as he mentioned some time ago, the elderly would be able to do it too. For those in nursing homes test the balls out of the workers and mitigate the spread as much as possible.

This country was never shutting down or staying home. Leadership/experts should have accepted that and looked for alternate more effective methods instead of trying to convince the country to shut down and stay home.

Know your audience, tailor your approach and response to fit that audience. Massive fail right here for our government and leaders.

The country never did shut down or stay home, beyond perhaps two weeks in March. When it became well understood how to mitigate the risk and keep as much open and running as possible, we didn't do that either.

Remember - the spring shutdowns were not about eradicating, as many like to rewrite history and speak as if they were. They were all about "flattening the curve" to slow the spread. Rather than having "x" number of infections in a short amount of time, a partial shutdown of non essential services would see that "x" spread out. I'd argue that we were at least slightly successful in slowing the spread while we learned and adapted to co-existing with the virus.

In retrospect, I would have been more ok with a draconian month long "don't leave your house, even for groceries or a walk" style lockdown if it could have been done in a way to fully burn out the virus *and* protect everyone's economic situation than I ever would have been a year ago. Essentially, let's all shut it all down on March 16th (just using the first date the Orlando theme parks didn't open) and then we'll reopen it all back up as usual five weeks later on April 20th. Nobody pays a bill, nobody owes anything, not a g.d. thing is open, and grocery shopping and other essentials like medical appointments will be pick up only, scattered and scheduled in communities. Go visit a friend? That's a hefty fine. It *never* would have flown in the United States. But we'd have all been dry humping at Surf Lounge on Cedar Point's 150th Opening Day in mid May if we had done it.

Not likely, we would have had next to zero cases, but we would have had a massive population of new hosts just waiting for infection. It would have popped back up and you would be constantly reliving those shutdowns to try and keep case count to zero. This is New Zealand’s model.

No one would have ever consented to release enough funds to cover the costs of the population and the businesses for those shutdowns. The population would have never gone for it either.

Indeed. And that's kind of what was hoped for with the slowdown in March, and if we had as many cases in the State as we thought we did, it might have worked. But in hindsight, the virus was actually well established by that time, and in reality we never had a chance.

At least things are looking better now. My daily analysis shows Ohio up to 17 days of declining average cases, and worst-case odds of meeting an infected Ohioan at about 1.332%; total active case count right about where it was on November 5. On the herd immunity front, Ohio has infected somewhere between 7.8575% and 26.1916% of the population, and started a vaccine on 5.2% of the population; no idea how much overlap between the infected and the inoculated. Looking at the estimated infectious case count (all cases that started <13 days ago) it took 36 days to get from November 5 to December 12, when cases peaked, and 42 days to get from the peak to here, so cases are not dropping as fast as they rose, but that can be misleading as there was an intermediate peak on January 8. In fact, the estimated infectious case count is dropping more rapidly than it rose.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.