Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Indian Wells (near Palm Springs for those unfamiliar) is a winter tourist haven and Old fart retirement area. Think NIMBY in its worst example. The cancellation is a huge deal, but the organizers were concerned about attendance and players dropping out. Next up in the area is Coachella and Stagecoach. Irrespective of your thoughts on the entertainers at either festival, between them they bring in 700,000 paid admission days (3 days each, over three weekends). That's a TON of Hotels, meals, ubers, etc that will just evaporate from a seasonal resort town that depends on that money to survive the barren summers.

It is shocking that the theme parks are still as busy as they are. DL has a 45 minute wait for Millennium Falcon, and a 50 minute wait for Big Thunder (as I type this).

and just now the entire country of Italy is locked down. The Entire country.

Either they are over-reacting or Americans are sorely underinformed.

CreditWh0re said:

It is shocking that the theme parks are still as busy as they are. DL has a 45 minute wait for Millennium Falcon, and a 50 minute wait for Big Thunder (as I type this).

I think that's the disconnect between how frightened the public actually is vs how frightened were being told to be.

Either they are over-reacting or Americans are sorely underinformed.

Hell, I think America is over-reacting.

Jeff said:

The risk can't be reduced to zero, but honestly, I'm at greater risk driving to the port than I am getting on the ship.

You're at greater risk of contracting nororvirus or Covid-19 in your car than on a cruise ship? What do you keep in your car?

You know I meant risk of death. Don't be cute.

I didn't actually. The conversation was about contracting norovirus or Covid-19. I didn't see any mention of dying from those.

Of course driving is statistically far more dangerous that just about any other mode of transportation. But being on a cruise ship with an infected patient seems to be a relatively easy way to contract Covid-19 considering the disease has an incubation period of 1 to 14 days. Sure checking temperatures of boarding passengers and isolating passengers with symptoms can help but that's not going to stop it from spreading in a closed environment. I'm going to trust the CDC on this one.

It's not logical to limit that to a cruise ship. There are people everywhere, including grocery stores and restaurants and schools and every job that requires you to colocate with other employees. More than 50,000 people were in Magic Kingdom today, not counting the cast members, and none of them were screened for anything. Where is the high alert?

OSU just went on-line for classes through March.

That one seems odd. No known cases on campus or even in Franklin County. Kids are out on break this week. Maybe the thought is kids dispersed across the country for break and suspending classes until the end of March gives a 2 week cushion after break. No decision on at this point about labs/performance classes. Kids can come back to campus for online classes or take them from home. Kids living in dorms still seem like it will be an issue. Reducing exposure rather than eliminating it, I suppose. Basketball team likely will continue to play games (though not clear how much longer based on how they have played at times this season).

I don’t have a very scientific way to explain it but I think the degree of escalation on a cruise ship is because of the isolated element of density surrounded by nothing else. It has nothing to do with cleanliness of the ship, just the way something interacts with food in an isolated environment. Couple with incubation period and risk of spread based on the geographic disbursement of Cruisers. Think mold in a wet basement and closing the door vs. mold in an open air room. If Coronavirus is the rubber ball, it’s gonna hit more when you bounce it around a closet filled with people, then say a field?

I know you’re going to pick on my science, but our gov. that is downplaying the risk of everything about this compared to the rest of the world and the one thing they did actually define is stay away from Cruises.

Yeah, we should be on higher alert all around. But it’s problematic because like I said in my original post that Americans do not have the respect for rules and discipline plus our country's leadership is foremost concerned about the short term economic implications and approaching it in that regard. One could also argue Grocery, School, Work is more critical to basic economic function, while higher risk cruises, festivals, theme parks are less so. (sensitive to employment implications).

Coachella, James Bond, the new festivals announced yesterday all date to the fall. So someone's model forecasts is putting the fall as a safe bet for recovery. Hopefully. Or is that just a point in time.

There are two (potential) problems with a ship. One is being in extended close quarters with other passengers. That might not be particularly better or worse than other close-quarters venues, though you're in a very high-density setting for several days to a week with the same people, and there aren't a lot of other things that look like that.

The other problem is what happens if the ship is quarantined, and you are on it for much longer than you expected. We've seen two of those now, though it looks like the second docked in Oakland after several days' delay--much better than the one in Yokohama. So, maybe that's not an issue now that there is sustained community spread in various pockets of the US. We seem to be transitioning from containment to delay, at which point an extended shipboard quarantine is less likely.

So far they have not had any “should we go” conversations re: the cruise.

They are starting to have this conversation. Not so much for the two of them; both are healthy with no real history of respiratory disease. But, there is some concern about my father in law. M. visits him regularly b/c he is starting to need more week-to-week/day-to-day help, and she's concerned about being a silent vector. He is in a much higher risk category. My son has a history of asthma, but he has an apartment through the summer so he can maintain social distance from the two of them.

The general expert consensus is don't quarantine anyone on a ship because that's dumb, no matter what President Cheeto says. There was a pretty solid retro on NYT about those mistakes. That isn't even a unique mistake to this particular virus, as it has played out with some flavor of norovirus as well. I doubt you'll see that happen again. It also seems to always go back to Carnival's inability to get much of anything right. Enjoy your booze cruise for $150... you get what you pay for!

Looks like Vegas just took a major hit - MGM Resorts are closing the buffets starting Sunday!

I'll have some of the yella.

of course, if MGM was worried about vector, why close the buffets on Sunday and not now (I guess there is 5 days worth of food in the fridge).

The sheer volume of universities that are closing and telling students to go home is amazing (see Harvard). Forget about Coachella and tennis tournaments, what is America going to do with an entire country of elementary school kids if they're not at school?

Closing K-12 would be a colossal mistake with unintended consequences. Healthcare workers can't work because they're watching their kids, who by most accounts are they least vulnerable.

hambone said:

...and the misery of being stuck on a ship for two weeks, missing work, potentially losing money or one's job, maybe having children at home who require extended care, and all the other factors would be a major turnoff to many people.

Right now this is a major turn on for me. Two weeks of extra vacation and all I have to do is sit on my balcony and relax? Yes please!

From what I have seen, the extra 2 weeks "vacation" will be spent on military bases in California, Georgia and Texas. Don't expect there will be many balconies involved. Or anything which would be viewed as luxury.

Even if it didn't take place on a ship... Is it two weeks of not being at work and just relaxing with little to no responsibilities? Still sounds like luxury to me. But I guess I don't have to wait for that to happen and I could just book another cruise. Meh.