Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

I don't really care what the Bee has to say, there are multiple articles out there that say similar things about what Stanford Medicine is doing, I could have picked others.

I think this is much more important to know, because many variables (mainly the response) would be removed. There was NO social distancing, NO stay at home orders were issued, NO businesses were closed last fall. If indeed it's been proven that the virus was present in California at that time, that's pretty important. Can the California population's data on deaths from last fall be compared to deaths in other places during all these additional measures being taken?

At this point, it's simply a hypothesis, I wasn't aware of an antibody test that had been developed for Coronavirus yet. Perhaps they have one.

I'm just glad that the question is at least being asked.

Jeff said:

If the virus did appear sooner, it sure will be interesting to understand why it didn't kill a bunch of people and spread quickly.

Cargo Shorts said:

If it was in CA why did it not spread?

If it were here earlier than expected, that would change our understanding of it to some degree.

What you guys are asking is why it didn't behave like we think it should have.

It didn't because our understanding is off in some way.

And personally, I believe this to be true. While social distancing has no doubt helped, we're outperforming the math of social distancing. With each passing day we readjust the predicted outcomes in a positive direction. Something else has to be at play here. But what?

(I also have a "I think someone I know had the virus before we knew this was a thing but well after it could have been here" story, but I know how that sounds and those stories are a dime a dozen and pathetically anecdotal - but if mine would be true, it would put the virus in CA by mid-December, and we were saying this amongst ourselves long before the press and researchers started considering it publicly)

There are antibody tests. Trick is getting them to scale. Same is true of the tests for the virus itself. Though would seem as though you need fewer antibody tests. With the virus tests, you would need to be checked periodically to verify you haven't since picked up the virus.

Jeff said:

It was not already here. Come on man, aren't you an engineer? As contagious as it is, we'd be on the back side of it with collapse of the healthcare system.

I love it that everyone is a statistician when they don't like the results.

Among other comments... I guess now that there may be "science", my theory isn't so ridiculous.

Again, we don't know what we don't know...

Jeff said:

If the virus did appear sooner, it sure will be interesting to understand why it didn't kill a bunch of people and spread quickly.

Cargo Shorts said:

If it was in CA why did it not spread?

Well, obviously, it's because California puts disclaimers and warnings on everything. Duh, people! ;-)

Clearly, this calls for legislation at the federal level to put warning labels on everything!

Especially drinking bleach as a valid Coronavirus treatment.

I would have gone with it’s because CA is a recreational cannabis state.🤣

It smells fishy.

All the articles that I find that talk about this reason behind the testing quotes this guy:

Victor Davis Hanson

And not any medical researcher from Stanford. A quick review of the active research projects at Stanford based on Covid-19 say nothing about this "theory" at all.

You can look them up easily here.

What seems to be happening is nothing more than blood tests to detect antibodies...not to see if it was here last fall.

If you can actually make it through that whole FOX clip, I applaud you. Within the first 60 seconds he says the words "deep state"...but that's the guy being quoted again and again.

A week ago I would have said we wouldn't be riding coasters in June or July. Now I'm much, much more optimistic we may get the chance.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html

OhioStater said:

It smells fishy.

But I don't like fish, and now you want me to click the link?

In all seriousness, I have no clue how a time frame can be established with antibody testing, was blood collected from those deceased from 'flu-like' symptoms last fall? Were wheels put on correctly? I'll let the smart people figure it out.

Whether I agree or not with the guys' feelings on 'deep state' stuff, I still think it should be a valid question to ask, test that theory and see if this was here longer than we thought.

I'm not crazy about how we've responded to this. I think more fear was created than necessary, but granted I've been a good boy, remained calm, listened to my Governor and did what what I'm supposed to do and made sure my kids did so as well. I would rather not go this route again whenever the next viral outbreak happens if we don't need to. If a study can be done to show the outcomes between letting a virus run its course or ordering everyone apart for a while, it should be studied. Then, come up with a plan that takes both into account to preserve peoples' lives and peoples' livelihood.

I hear what y'all are saying and I'm glad that in a lot of places things are working out to suggest that the precautions were overblown. Here in San Jose (first detected case in US) and in CA as a whole, we've been seeing great numbers, so far. Maybe that's attributed to early shelter-in-place response or maybe it's independent of it. Still hard to say. And who knows what will happen to the numbers if we relax the restrictions.

But I don't think anybody is looking at Lombardy or New York or Madrid and saying their precautions are overblown. Is New York that different from San Jose or LA or Chicago or Detroit or New Orleans or Cleveland that we can safely say, "Okay. Next time, New York should definitely do every precaution but New Orleans can do 75% and Cleveland can do 25% of the precautions"? Mathematically, (at least as I understand virus transmission) it's such a knife's edge between Cleveland and New York City and it may be dramatically affected by an event beyond the control of precautions (ala patient 31 in S. Korea or "that one conference" in Boston).

edit: I personally am super risk averse (I believe what is known in the vernacular as "a pussy") and pretty well off financially, so I'd rather not take the risk next time that even though many cities will be fine, San Jose will be the next New York.

TheMillenniumRider said:

If I was looking to inflict damage to the GP in the park, it would be extremely easy to circumvent the current security measures and bring anything I wanted into the park. So yes, it is absolutely security theater. I'm sure they catch a ton of contraband through the checkpoint, but I would be surprised if anything they find is on a person who was there to inflict harm with it. I'm guessing many of them are concealed carries who think they can bring it in with them, or forgot it was on their person, things like that.

Having lived in Texas for 11 years, there are an inordinate number of people who just forget they have a gun on them. Like, they put it on in the morning the same way I put my phone in my pocket. There's a whole line of business to help the "Oh ****. I forgot I had my gun and now I'm in line for security" folks.

Re: security theater
It's that old joke about "I don't need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun you." I always tell my kids to lock the doors, hide the electronics, don't flash their cash. Why? Not because someone who wanted to break into our car and steal our laptops, couldn't. But it makes it more likely that thieves will break into someone else's car where the laptop is just sitting on the seat. Of course security theater doesn't stop a bad person who really wants to shoot up a place. But it makes it much more likely that they'll go shoot up someone else's place. I don't know if that's a win in aggregate, but Disney is probably super glad that it deterred that one guy from their parks and would happily install twice the security if it sent another shooter somewhere else.

That's why I don't see this as helpful for a virus. The only thing temperature checks might do is deter people who are knowingly sick or borderline sick from coming to the parks. That's such a small portion of potential transmissions, given the nature of theme parks, that I see it as blowing out a candle when the house is on fire.

The California thing is interesting, but even if it turned out to be present, and I'm highly skeptical of that, the presence of such an anecdote would not invalidate the fact that New York City is generating 800 body bags per day. Russian Roulette with a tommy gun that's loaded with one blank is still a pretty bad idea. I certainly hope that by referencing this outlier possibility that no one is trying to make a "we overreacted" argument. The action taken was the correct one, and the math that Europe is enduring makes that crystal clear. To Andy's point, the edge relative containment and widespread death is razor thin, and that's an observable fact.

The makers of the IHME state-by-state model are quoted as saying California fared much better than New York because it instituted "stay-at-home" one week earlier.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/07/825479416/new-...ate-s-peak

"The model projects California will see fewer deaths than New York, despite having twice as many people living in the state. That gives California a much lower death rate relative to its number of residents. The difference reflects social distancing measures California took, says Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at IHME who helped create the model. 'California started social distancing before New York. [Californians] had one week ahead of them in order to deal with the problem and took the right measures,' Mokdad says. 'And we're seeing the benefit.'"

HeyIsntThatRob? said:

But I don't like fish, and now you want me to click the link?

[/quote}

-If temperature checks can catch 50% of potential carriers (not such a small portion of potential transmissions). Isn't it worth exploring along with other measures? What other viable options are on the table that include opening parks? I am confident if anyone is going to find a solution to this, it is going to be Disney.

-The science of the curve doesn't support the virus being here last fall. Especially how people move around the holidays. The human mind is a powerful thing to retcon symptoms. See all the panic attack vs. corona-virus articles.

-Pictures of Disney characters holding up all the guns they confiscated at the gates would be something. Maybe time to update those tunnel posters.

I know everyone will be "looking to Disney" to see how to safely reopen. However, part of me thinks it may be safer for smaller regional parks like Holiday World or Kennywood to be the first to open. Places that aren't going to get tens or hundreds of thousands a day flying from all over the country/world to congregate, but rather parks that are primarily locals driving in for a day visit.

Kstr 737 said:

-If temperature checks can catch 50% of potential carriers (not such a small portion of potential transmissions). Isn't it worth exploring along with other measures? What other viable options are on the table that include opening parks?

So even if it could catch 50%, which I think is optimistic because, "what the hell is someone with a fever doing at Disney World in the first place?" I still don't think that's nearly enough. I mean, even if there's only one carrier, you're still looking at thousands of new transmissions from that one person who would then fly all over the country and the world. Think of all the rides, hand rails, characters, tables, trays, merch, pins, etc. that that single person will touch in a day at Disney World, not to mention just being in proximity to so many people for shows, parades, fireworks, and in lines. I actually think sporting events would be better because it's mostly a local audience and for the vast majority of the time you're sitting near the same 20 people.

ApolloAndy said:

'California started social distancing before New York. [Californians] had one week ahead of them in order to deal with the problem and took the right measures,' Mokdad says. 'And we're seeing the benefit.'"

Yeah, that one extra weekend NY squeezed in before it was locked down... We were aware but there was not yet any restrictions coupled with the first real spring weather. I think it was March 14th/15th (or the week before)? NYC absolutely ignored the incoming threat. I speculate that was a difference maker.

Regarding 50%, yeah I agree that's not enough. I think Iger was just riffing. But it's the start of innovation. Temperature checks may be the first low hanging fruit... with further screening TBD.

I'm willing to give up some level of freedom for security and the ability to actually partake in the activity of going to parks Vs. not willing to give up the freedom: which in this unfortunate scenario means the park doesn't open. That's the real underlying impetus of this ongoing security theater argument, right? If not, why else are people so bothered by it?

I don't think there's a different solution for Disney, small regional parks or sporting events. Gathering people is the issue. Our world is too connected to isolate any markets. Unless travel sanctions stay forever.

Although I think baseball has a decent proposed interim solution to sporting events with their all Arizona/no crowds idea. Bring it back for the morale (and the TV revenue). But even that needs to be further developed. What happens when a player gets sick? (And is the Player's Union really gonna let outdoor play in Phoenix continue into July...)

Population densities I surmise would be the biggest driver in differences between NY and CA. NY as a whole is 421 people per square mile, compared to 253 in CA. Let kick that disparity up a bit by looking at LA, 8,527 people per square mile to NYC of 28,429 per square mile, and then also consider than Manhattan at 70,629 people per square mile, which I believe is the most densely populate area in the country.

A week may have helped, but honestly I think NYC was screwed from the get go.

Kstr 737 said:

I'm willing to give up some level of freedom for security and the ability to actually partake in the activity of going to parks Vs. not willing to give up the freedom: which in this unfortunate scenario means the park doesn't open. That's the real underlying impetus of this ongoing security theater argument, right? If not, why else are people so bothered by it?

The founders of this country would have made you a pariah for a statement like this, or hanged you, not sure which. If you want to live by giving up your freedoms, the freedoms that people in our military die to protect, you can pick up and head out.