Virus Impact on CP

^^^I'd rather see those people stay home, than show up to the park and go on a long diatribe in the Guest Relations building. The more people willingly adhering to the rules, the better the park experience will be.

We're going to get the remainder of our pass time refunded for WDW. It's not the mask thing (though I can assure you I don't want to walk around in Orlando swamp-ass season at a theme park with a mask), it's that a) I want to see real progress on the infection rate going down, nationally since people will presumably be traveling to the park, and that'll take at least a month or two to see, and b) having to make reservations for the parks will undoubtedly mean going less, and c) the inevitable cancellation or reduction of the Food & Wine Festival, make it not worth going. It's not the same product anymore, and at $720 for each of us, it doesn't make sense.

We'll gladly buy passes again when we know the experience is worth it and risk is low. My wife and son both have had serious respiratory conditions and are in a higher risk category than most. There has to be some quantifiable data (or a readily available vaccine) to demonstrate that they can visit safely.

^Sollybeast, I'm thinking your not familiar with how uncomfortable summer season is in Orlando without a mask, let alone with one. I have a WDW trip scheduled for August 22, and if the mask restriction isn't lifted by then (unlikely) we won't be going. Not because I "can't be inconvenienced" but because I couldn't possibly imagine being in August Orlando heat/humidity with a mask on.

And I'm a diehard Disney fan. DVC, AP holder, etc. We go twice per year, minimum. Sometimes more. But even being that big a fan I won't go in those conditions. I completely understand the reasons and am not complaining that Disney is requiring them, it makes sense. But everyone has a right to decide what they want to do/tolerate, etc.

I've got another trip scheduled for January. Figure in the likely case my August trip is cancelled I'll be back soon enough. And if the mask restriction is still in place then at the least they'll be easier to tolerate.

UP4014 said:
True fact though working in the medical field the N95 mask is the only mask that is proven to work, so unless they implement that requirement doesn’t do much good. Hence why all the medical professionals need to wear them and are fitted for them. These paper masks and homemade ones don’t cut it. Just saying what I see daily and read daily from work.

Well yea, it's not going to prevent you from getting it. Anyone assuming it will stop you from getting it is naive or was misinformed. Any doctor or expert will tell you that it's more about limiting people who might have COVID-19 from spreading it more easily. Since one of the biggest threats of SARS COV-2 is that you can be asymptomatic and still spread it (and spread it not long after your point of infection), there needs to be some way to at least slow the spread from possible carriers. The cloth masks are not a perfect barrier but SOME kind of barrier is better than no barrier at all. Same basic idea as sneezing or coughing into your shoulder and not your hand.

It's such a simple concept that too many people, who are opposed to it, like to claim is some kind of false narrative. If we can all practice proper social distancing, follow basic steps to stay clean and wear masks whenever and wherever possible, we can ALL get through this a lot quicker, a lot safer and get back to some kind of normal. But since too many people are making the mask issue a political statement and are refusing to follow basic, easy to understand guidelines, COVID-19 will continue to be a real threat.

Huge issues yesterday with the Six Flags reservation system for the Great Adventure Safari. System crashed from the traffic and it wasn't recognizing reservations, making you buy a ticket first and then try to reserve a spot. A bad omen for when they open it up for actual park days. With the issues we've had in the past for CP hot ticket events like Chill Out, I think it's going to be a mess.

I think it’ll only be a mess for now. I mean, everybody and every business is learning as we go. We can only get better from here.

In terms of those who are trying to make wearing a mask a political statement, it’s laughable at this point. They’ll be in for a rude awakening once they’re on personal property of an amusement park if they refuse to adhere to the rules.

My thing is, in Ohio at least...we’ve been given the resources and knowledge on how to prevent the virus. It is literally up to us as humans to keep following the guidelines we’ve been given.

With that said, I can already see some punk trash walking by and fake coughing at/towards a group of people because they think they’re cool and funny. That right there would start a fight instantly. In my very honest opinion, I just see this season being somewhat of a disaster if the park does open.

TwistedWicker77 said:

It is literally up to us as humans to keep following the guidelines we’ve been given.

And this is why fighting this virus will be a long, painful, drawn out process. Humans are literally the worse. People protesting simple guidelines like wearing a mask in public spaces. Literally the easiest thing you can do. People suck, humanity is doomed. We literally don't care that we destroy our planet and put fellow humans at risk cause it "doesn't effect me today!"

Humans are the worse thing to happen to this planet.

You ever see those 'Life After People' documentaries? It's amazing how quick nature reclaims things once humans are out of the picture, like we were a bad memory that the planet would just as soon move on from and forget about.

Human psychology explains a lot of our behavior and why we become stuck in our ways over time.

For good and bad, we are subject to group mentality and societal conditioning.

I grew up in a fairly progressive household. I have also spent a lot of time around grown adults around my fire department who are hardcore trump supporters.

Ignorance and commitment to both conscious and subconscious values, standards, and biases based on upbringing can explain some of the reasoning behind the hateful, racist, and ignorant speech shared among the far-right wing.

Hate fuels hate. he makes people angry. he directs where that anger should be focused.

A lot of us lack the ability to travel and experience a wide array of cultures. This burdens our societal progression.

My two cents.

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
--Isaac Asimov

That's an excellent quote.

I think I mentioned this on CB, maybe here, but whatever, if you haven't read The Death of Expertise, you should. It may take some vulnerability and self-awareness, but we're probably all guilty to some degree of thinking we know better when in fact we don't. The book was written mostly before Trump was elected, but the patterns are plain as day.

I was taken aback the other day by someone I respected who said that they were not going to bend to "elitism" in the context of being challenged by expert guidance over his own opinions. The idea that now the most educated in our society are less valuable and respected than the rest of us because we have opinions is wholly frightening.

Goes along with: The more you know the more you realize you don’t know.

Any type of a college education, even a class here and there from a community college, really helps to broaden your world view.

The best class I ever took at The Ohio State University (as an undergrad)...circa 1996...was a class I thought would be completely boring. Meaningless. A gen-ed requirement. "American History, 1945 - present".

Really? I took Social Studies. What could I possibly learn?

The class was taught by a young black professor who, on the first day of class, told all 30 (or so) of us that if we really paid attention, we would realize how much we never learned from our history classes in public schools. We would hear the history that didn't get published in the textbooks we had all read (or pretended to read).

I was never naive enough to believe that the rural-Ohio bubble I grew up in was all there was; in fact, I spent most of my time waiting to escape. But yea...what you said. Worldview got a level-up in those 10 weeks (Ohio State was on "quarters", not semesters back then).

Sad that the lessons we learned in that class are still headline news today.

vwhoward said:

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
--Isaac Asimov

Asimov was a good writer. I have read several of his books. His quote however, ignores the good of America (and the rest of the free world).

Jude Waniski tells us that the electorate is always right. Dr. Robert Goodman (PHD Economist) tells us that our government always does the right thing.

There are always going to be rotten apples; but they are the minority.

Sometimes John Q Public stands up and gives the government the middle finger. And they're usually right. Time will tell.

I think that American exceptionalism has gotten out of control. We want to be number one, cool, but we're number one in per capita incarceration and Covid-19 deaths and infections. Those aren't really bragging rights. It's true that the United States has been a great leader at a great many things throughout its history, but why after two and a half centuries can we not get beyond racism? Why can't we contain healthcare costs and make sure everyone has access? Why can't we beat poverty? We can't even balance the national checkbook. I'll never understand how the richest country in the world can fail so hard at the basics, and worse, be complacent about it.

This is where I invoke Will McAvoy...

I agree Jeff. American exceptionalism is dead. 100,000 Americans dead from a pandemic, cities burning while the president threatens to use the military to shoot citizens committing property crime, police continuing to murder innocent black men in the streets, mass government censorship, etc.

The racism isn't getting worse, it's getting filmed.

Invoke the 25th.

Alot of cases and deaths are coming from nursing homes, long term care facilities and those who are living or working in them. It's not just covid that goes around places like that, but there are lots of germs in those types of places. When I had grandparents in nursing homes, I would dread walking though the door because who knows what kind of disease I would catch in there. I've gotten stomach bugs in there before. I know a few nurses and they have said that it would be much better for the health of the residents and the care workers if those who needed the help were able to be in their homes with home nurses and they would receive much better care. One former nurse told me that they are in charge of at least 50 patients in a care facility. Try spreading all that work to just a couple of nurses per hallway. The only problem with having mostly in-home care is that there are nowhere near enough care workers to be able to have a system like that. They can barely staff hospitals and care facilities as it is. I would think that if our system was set up so there was more in-home care, the number of cases and deaths would be much lower.

I posted earlier; I wonder where it went... I am replying to Jeff's post. It will take me some time to reply to it in full.

"Why can't we beat poverty?"

This one is easy. No one goes hungry unless they really try. It's true that there was destitute poverty (Appalachia comes to mind). One of President Johnson's hallmarks is/was "The Great Society". While I'm a" Country Club Republican" I fully support the concept of a Welfare State. It's expensive as hell and introduces an "incentive to idleness". However, it does what it's supposed to do. cut down on destitute poverty. Appalachia was a tragedy that had to be solved. Economic growth is also a factor in cutting down poverty. Our free-market economy has been extremely effective in spreading the wealth.

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/poverty-income-consumption/

"Heritage Foundation poverty analysts Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield in a 2016 data report noted that "poor" in America doesn't mean what it means elsewhere. Based on a 2009 government survey of spending, the average poor person in the U.S., for instance, lives in a bigger house than the average nonpoor person in France, Germany or England. Moreover, nearly 85% of poor homes in the U.S. have air conditioning, and nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite TV. Half own computers and 43% have internet access. More than half own a video game system.

This is not to say that the poor have it easy, or that we should ignore their plight. But we have to understand that claims America has grinding poverty as in the developing world are false. And, as the last two years have shown, the best anti-poverty program of all is a job."

The government stats are deceptive. "Social Problems are created by those who benefit from the creation of the social problem"-Clayton A. Hartjen. Hartjen's lens is "conflict theory" (Marxism). Milton Freidman used the same paradigm to explain social problems. Conflict Theory cannot, however, explain the "Tragedy of the Commons" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

From a personal perspective, I have been poor. I was on food stamps, energy assistance, and food bank donations. I had a decent apartment, proper HVAC, internet, color TV, two computers, the internet, and a really nice golf course (I would play 200 rounds a year; I played every day). I simply got tired of being poor. I got a job and doubled my salary over the years. Now I have a nice vehicle, my own place, a nice pet, and a girlfriend. My self-esteem has returned and I can visit the park at will.

Destitute poverty in America (and the free world) has been stamped out. Free market capitalism has been very effective in getting rid of grinding poverty.

I will try to address each of the issues you mentioned; it will take some time as your post was well written and very complex.