New Covid Protocols for this season.

@F1rePhant0m I'm pretty sure they can't actually. I'm no attorney but I'm pretty sure it would be a violation of someone's HIPAA rights for CP to ask them sensitive questions about their health. But either way you're right, they won't ask even if they can. From the FAQ section of the health protocols page of their website:

"Do I need to bring proof of full vaccination to be permitted to not wear a face covering?

No. Face coverings are recommended but not required indoors or outdoors for guests who are fully vaccinated if social distancing cannot be maintained."

I'm not suggesting anyone break any rules. My comment was basically saying that yeah, masks are done at CP now aside from those who voluntarily choose to wear them.

Anyone else notice reservations are suddenly unavailable for Tuesdays & Wednesdays in June? Are they dropping to 5 day a week operation?

^^ We are on the same page here, but no, it's not a violation of HIPAA rights for a private business or person to ask about vaccination status. That only covers information being shared by health care providers / insurers. They can't force anyone to divulge info, but they can ask, and they can mandate different rules according to the response. But I agree with your sentiment for sure.

^ I saw that too. Calendar still shows park open, but I noticed I was having trouble booking at Breakers on those days (just testing, not really planning on being there those days.)

I'm far from a scholar on law, but I'm going to throw my two cents in anyways cause that's what all the cool kids are doing.

This is quite a grey area that I believe we will see some ruling by the courts in the future.

On one hand, we have Title VII that protects employers from discriminating against someone on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin or sex. Which was also determined by the Supreme Court that this includes sexual orientation. Again, note that Title VII is protection in the case of employers and employee interactions.

On the other hand, there was the Supreme Court ruling on the case of the Colorado baker denying service to a gay couple which they ruled in favor of the baker. This is an instance of the SC making a ruling on business and customer interactions. However, this has nothing to do with one's health.

Now onto the third hand (yes, this monster has three hands because that's how muddied these waters are), the whole HIPAA gambit. HIPAA is in place to protect patient privacy and their medical data. It applies to healthcare providers, health insurance companies, companies that works on behalf of HIPAA covered companies, etc. This really has nothing to do with a hardware store, gas station, or in this case an amusement park.

And yet another facet to this complex issue could be the ADA. While a vaccine has absolutely nothing to do with having a disability, it is something that prevents businesses from discriminating both employees and customers due to a health related instance.

As you can (hopefully) see, we really don't have a concrete answer on whether or not a business is or isn't allowed to ask about and/or discriminate based on someone's vaccination status. If I had to pick a side, I'd say the businesses probably can refuse service based on vaccination status at this point.

^ To that end, it's not necessarily about discrimination either, but just one more supposed safety measure (ie. masking if unvaccinated.) For example, there have already been sporting events that have had vaccinated vs. unvaccinated sections with differing rules regarding face coverings. If you can prove you were vaccinated, you could sit in a certain section, unmasked, with less restrictions. If you couldn't or wouldn't, you had to stay in the normal section, masked. Again, I'm not saying it would be worth it for CP to go through all that hassle, but they totally could if they felt like they needed to for some reason. You're right, in the future we may see some changes to laws or lawsuits regarding these things, but for now, it's legal.

I'm going to keep my input on this limited. But I do want to draw attention to one point.

You mentioned ADA, and while I don't have the legal background to discuss how that affects people's vaccination status being information a business can or cannot request, I do have the legal family experience to speak to the other notes Cedar Point has on the topic.

In the FAQ they have an exemption noted for other mental and physical health conditions that prevent a guest from wearing a mask. Most of that conversation has been thoroughly hashed out by legal teams from my experience, and the answer is no part of Cedar Fair or it's subsidiary companies has any legal grounds to request information from or deny a guest services based upon an ADA protected mental or physical health condition that may be related to not wearing a mask.

If this does become an issue Cedar Point/Fair can go back to last year's policy of they aren't making any allowance for ADA mental or physical health conditions related to masks, and then someone can't use that policy. But that may open up more of a legal headache than it's worth in and of itself.

Just my 2 cents on this whole conversation. Thank you for your time!

*Edit: I speak to ADA mental and physical health conditions as they relate to masks here, but the existing policies I have experience with are not mask specific and merely protection of any ADA protected condition's and businesses rights on how they can treat customers based on them.

F1rePhant0m said:

^ I saw that too. Calendar still shows park open, but I noticed I was having trouble booking at Breakers on those days (just testing, not really planning on being there those days.)

Good catch. M-W Night those first 3 weeks in June show no availability across all properties (Except a random ultimate patio site). Thursday shows full availability for June and All weekdays available in July. Unless there is some odd M-W demand in June, there's trouble afoot.

If the park is going to five days a week only in summer that would be….quite less than ideal.

However, given their most recent efforts to drum up employees I would say that this will not be the most pleasant season ahead due to staffing issues, which, at this point appear to be semi-permanent. I am holding out hope that things will turn around but, as there has been some radio silence from the park recently I am a bit concerned that there will be an inevitable “Park Update” coming soon.

They are also still actively recruiting water park employees which doesn’t bode well considering the water park is less than ten days from opening.

^ Yeah, I don't want to assume anything, but we are definitely keeping an eye on all this before we even decide if we want to try to go for our trip this year. Even though when we go, we stay at Breakers for 4 or 5 days, I'm thinking early closures and staffing issues might severely take away the fun / value, and force us to choose somewhere else. Normally we would already have a long stay at Breakers booked by now.

Paisley said:

A fair amount of unvaccinated people already have natural immunity from having been infected over this past year. Immunity is immunity however you got it...

This is simply not true. If you were infected this time last year, your immunity lasted perhaps until January. Maybe longer in some cases, but we simply don't know enough yet to make such a bold, blanket claim.

And It's not as if immunity is binary, like one day you're 100% immune and the next day you're at 0%. We don't know how effective natural immunity would be a year later compared to someone who just got their second dose of a Pfizer vaccine a few weeks ago, but we can make the very educated guess that the vaxxed person is FAR more protected against spreading the virus.

And the "I don't need to get vaxxed, I survived the Chinese flu, it's all overblown" group is somewhat self-selecting, in that they are more likely to have been engaging in risky behavior. This makes them more likely to be carriers, thus the exact people who should continue to wear masks. And critically, the exact people who will use the flawed logic that all immunity is the same, and therefore because they got sick last year they are immune, so they don't need to wear a mask.

I would just call that Chicken-Pox logic. When we were kids parents would hold "Chicken-Pox" parties if a kid in the neighborhood got it so that every other kid could get it just to get it over with, because Chicken Pox later in life is typically much worse than when one is young. The idea is pretty simple; you get it when you're tiny and then you're immune the rest of your life....except for that pesky little Shingles thing that can creep up on you later in life.

Brandon nailed it, though; we have absolutely no idea what "natural immunity" for Covid-19 looks like, and I can't imagine anyone (well, actually yes I can) that thinking it's anywhere near the level of protection from being vaccinated.

With regards to asking about being vaccinated, it doesn't seem that complicated. HIPAA has absolutely nothing to do with a business asking you if you're vaccinated.

1) A business can ask

2) You can tell them whatever you want

3) That business can decide what to do with you based on your answer.

But it's also a business decision (with regards to the business) on whether they even want to do this. I think this is why we keep seeing the "honor system" being used everywhere...it seems to be the "safe" choice given our politicized/polarized environment.

Chicken pox parties??? Sounds like you had a great childhood.

The late 80s -90s were the best time to grow up. And now I'm immune!@#$#!

That must have been a thing after my childhood. I don't remember anything like that. Although I guess maybe my 2nd grade classroom was my party as we pretty much got all got them at the same time.

And then we developed (drumroll...) a vaccine for chicken pox.

Not so funny end to the story, it actually never worked on me, so I ended up getting it at age 16 in the middle of basketball season from a little nephew.

Tons of fun.

Say what!?
I had chickenpox in 3rd grade.
Does that mean I'm immune to Covid??
I KNEW *I* didn't need that vaccine.
Oh well...what's done is done.

We had a family chicken-pox party.. My brother brought it home and then we all got it. I think I was in the 2d grade.

Interesting that tues/wed seem to be blacked out now for June. I already bought resevations/tickets for tues. June 1st. Im assuming if the park is going to be closed they would notify those who already bought tickets for those days

I am sure they would love to do that….if they had the staff…

Paisley said:
...And if the infection numbers are falling there is really no reason to. A fair amount of unvaccinated people already have natural immunity from having been infected over this past year. Immunity is immunity however you got it and the chances of any nonimmune person you encounter being a cesspool of virus waiting to shed on you keeps getting lower and lower. Unfortunately I see many people likely having a hard time letting go of this mindset.

Infection numbers are falling rapidly.

I've been tracking the Ohio data daily, and also extrapolating to a very pessimistic 70% undercount due to the large number of asymptomatic cases that can apparently exist. Assuming a COVID patient is contagious for 12 days, as of today (yesterday's numbers reported today) there are between 9,266 and 30,886 active COVID-19 cases in Ohio. That means that at worst your odds of meeting one of these infected people are about 0.1966% or 1:509. That's based on the up-to-21,620 cases we don't really know about since those are the only ones we really have to worry about (presumably the 9,266 who tested positive have voluntarily removed themselves from society for a couple of weeks).

Based on this, your odds of even finding a contagious person to infect you are pretty low, and are falling. High enough that there are probably a few of them at Cedar Point on any given day, but once you start dividing out to the groups you meet inside the park the odds become very low. Add to that the risk calculation based on both distance and duration of exposure and mostly limited to indoor environments and even if you do happen to meet one of these theoretical super-spreaders, unless that person is in your social group, you're unlikely to be exposed to that person long enough and under the right conditions to risk an infection. Mask or no mask.

People have a hard time understanding how this works. Put another way, people suck at risk management. 8-)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.