If only 32% are currently fully vaccinated (if that stat is accurate) that is a lofty goal in exactly one month. Hope for the best.
Does anyone ever consider that part of the reason you can dine in and have so much space is because that many people are NOT comfortable with eating inside?? I don’t mean that as a negative to those dining in but restaurants can’t be doing that well if they have a couple tables dining at a time.
Many restaurants here are doing a very very brisk carry out business. And when it’s warm enough (some have heaters) a very brisk patio dining business. And deliveries.
The place where we ate last night does a huge delivery and take out business at two locations.
I have read that about half of adults have had at least one shot. Since 5/19 is less than five weeks away, that means that any remaining unvaccinated adults who want to become fully vaccinated by then need to get the J&J vaccine by 5/5 (assuming that the “pause” is lifted and they are not afraid of the rare (orders of magnitude rarer than getting serious COVID-19) clotting issues).
The approximately one sixth of adults who have had one shot of the two dose vaccines need to have had Moderna by 4/7 or Pfizer by 4/14 to be able to reach 5/19 fully vaccinated.
Of course, then there are also the under-16 children who currently cannot get vaccinated.
I think that is largely the case across the country in ALL regions. If the restaurant doors are still open they are likely surviving on carry out - or some outdoor dining - which was part of my point.
This was in the NYT daily e-mail today as part of what they wrote about Covid. I like how they put it in perspective and it solidifies my thoughts that once everyone who wants to be vaccinated has a chance to be, I’m going back to normal - at least the parts of normal I want to return to.
"major media outlets trumpeted new government data last week showing that 5,800 fully vaccinated Americans had contracted Covid. That may sound like a big number, but it indicates that a vaccinated person’s chances of getting Covid are about one in 11,000. The chances of a getting a version any worse than a common cold are even more remote.
But they are not zero. And they will not be zero anytime in the foreseeable future. Victory over Covid will not involve its elimination. Victory will instead mean turning it into the sort of danger that plane crashes or shark attacks present — too small to be worth reordering our lives.
That is what the vaccines do. If you’re vaccinated, Covid presents a minuscule risk to you, and you present a minuscule Covid risk to anyone else. A car trip is a bigger threat, to you and others. About 100 Americans are likely to die in car crashes today. The new federal data suggests that either zero or one vaccinated person will die today from Covid.
It’s true that experts believe vaccinated people should still sometimes wear a mask, partly because it’s a modest inconvenience that further reduces a tiny risk — and mostly because it contributes to a culture of mask wearing. It is the decent thing to do when most people still aren’t vaccinated. If you’re vaccinated, a mask is more of a symbol of solidarity than anything else.
Coming to grips with the comforting realities of post-vaccination life is going to take some time for most of us. It’s only natural that so many vaccinated people continue to harbor irrational fears. Yet slowly recognizing that irrationality will be a vital part of overcoming Covid.
“We’re not going to get to a place of zero risk,” Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist, told me during a virtual Times event last week, “I don’t think that’s the right metric for feeling like things are normal.”
After Nuzzo made that point, Dr. Ashish Jha of Brown University told us about his own struggle to return to normal. He has been fully vaccinated for almost two months, he said, and only recently decided to meet a vaccinated friend for a drink, unmasked. “It was hard — psychologically hard — for me,” Jha said.
“There are going to be some challenges to re-acclimating and re-entering,” he added. “But we’ve got to do it.”
And how did it feel in the end, I asked, to get together with his friend?
“It was awesome,” Jha said.
Disneyland will open April 30 at reduced capacity and for California residents only. I bought tickets and made reservations for the four of us (H and I, S20 and D23) for Memorial Day for Disneyland and for June 13, a Sunday, for California Adventure. If I’m understanding correctly, before June 15, the parks’ maximum capacity will be 35%. Beginning June 15, California will abandon the tier system, and “fully reopen” the economy, so I was trying to book reservations before that happens.
H and I are already vaccinated, S20 has his first shot next week. D23 unfortunately will not turn 16 until August, but I still feel comfortable with the plans; there’s a small risk, but D23 really needs something fun to look forward to. I would be over the moon if the FDA green lights Pfizer for 12-15 year olds in May or early June, so D23 could get some protection before summer, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up.
We thought the same thing and are going in May.
Cool! I was really surprised to find availability; I just booked a couple of days ago. Though, maybe the $154 ticket price was a deterrent! I think Disney will keep the tier pricing; it makes sense. I absolutely had to book California Adventure after June 4, since my kids are huge Marvel Universe fans.
Just got off the phone with the local opera company. They sent out subscription notices but I had Qs about what measures they’re taking, even tho 1st performance isn’t until Oct. we had a nice chat and I asked her about covid precautions and she said they are following everything CDC and the venue requires and of course there will be updates closer to the dates.
She also mentioned they’ll be very flexible about cancellations if folks are uncomfortable. I told her I will likely call back 6/1 (renewal deadline is 6/15).
IMO, there has been an irresponsible level of fear created by the media. This report is a great example. You hear 11k infected AFTER full vaccination and the media focuses on 11k, fear, doom, etc. They could choose to focus on 11k is nothing relative to mundane risks like driving. And the 11k would be more similar to the common cold. So a big who cares?
It’s as if the media (to maintain the news cycle) and others (some in the medical community who don’t want to lose their recent public relevancy - again IMO) just want to keep the status quo alive and well. I’m sure this isn’t a popular opinion. Another example would be the J&J pause. 6 tragic cases out of 7M doses. Really. How come we don’t hear about what the normal vaccine results are for tragic side effects? Maybe this is actually a low number. The media doesn’t talk about it. The J&J tech is critical to getting the world vaccinated (low manufacturing cost, longer shelf life, none of the ridiculously low temp shipping and storage issues). Most of the third world has no infrastructure for the other options. I’d take the 1:1M odds and vaccinate the whole world which will eliminate host sites and tamp down the spread of new mutations.
DH would have loved a big bash for his 60th birthday (Nov). Not to be. I rented a beautiful lake cabin in Broken Bow, OK, near the Beaver Bend state park for this past weekend. We’d never been there before. Just the two of us, it was a great change of scenery. We hiked, grilled outdoors on the patio, drove around the lake to view the beautiful scenery, etc.
Saturday around 5 pm, we went to a little cafe famous for their chicken fried steaks. Barely anyone there, but noticed no mask mandate and none of the staff were masked. By the time we got our food, the whole restaurant was full, with nary a mask in site. Even though fully vaccinated, I felt my anxiety rising, like a mercury thermometer. We basically shoveled our food in as fast as possible and got out of there. Driving through town, we noted that restaurants were packed and saw not one NOT ONE mask anywhere. Coming from Dallas where most businesses require them (even though official mandate was dropped), this was a big culture shock.
I am not worried particularly that we got COVID from eating in that restaurant, but it did make it clear to me that this whole thing has imprinted upon me a state of mind that will be very hard to overcome, even once the impact of this pandemic has been completely minimized (whenever that happens).
It’s like a mini PTSD. I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely comfortable being in such close quarters with strangers.
Does the media not talk about the “other side of the coin” - or does the public choose to cue in on the more dramatic, negative side of a claim or fact? The media is not the one making the decision to shut J and J down. Like most things, if you want to gain more fact or opinion you have to look beyond the surface.
It’s the news job to give out numbers, what people do with those numbers and how they interpret them is their choice. Everyone has the right to turn it off or not click. I have always hated 24 hour news channels- there is not enough “news” so most of it is filled with people giving their assumptions/opinions about things.
For us, now being fully vaccinated, we will be eating inside a restaurant and flying, mostly because restrictions on travel have decreased. We’ve been to Disney during Covid and are about to go again and have one indoor restaurant reservation. For our kids, they will probably hang out more with friends who weren’t as Covid cautious and the newly 21-year-old will probably go out to a bar or 2!
We are going to a baseball game this Friday. I will eat indoors. I am traveling next month. When I am around other fully vaccinated people, I ask first, and then pull down my mask if we both agree. The big thing is that I dont get is why being masked up outdoors makes sense. Also, at what point, does Covid become part of our lives, similar to other ailments where people die, but doesnt stop us from living. We all have PTSD in some way after a year of this. It will take time to change things. I was a firm believer in wearing masks and double masking while around others in indoor spaces before i got vaccinated. Now I am starting to be “over it”. It has been a gradual change.
I’m reading this reminded about just how different humans are with our likes/dislikes. Different is good, of course, because it keeps the whole world running, but those of you who consider Disney the #1 place to return to are polar opposites from my family - not due to Covid - just due to the love (or not) of Disney. You’re probably looking forward to it as much as we are with our cabin on the St Lawrence for two weeks or our 11 day train trip sightseeing the country by rail.
My mind tells me it has to be a similar mindset of looking forward to things, but other parts of my mind are wondering, Why Disney of all places? Esp if one has been there before more than once (as we have). I imagine y’all can use the same phrase and just replace the words.
Human variation is fascinating. It does keep the whole world running, so enjoy!
@jeneric @abasket You are both making my point. The news media is NOT giving the objective numbers that demonstrate reality. Or maybe they are just giving certain numbers to frame what they want to frame. Most people are lazy. They will hear / see 6 tragic side effects or 11k reinfections. They won’t dig to find the relevance of those numbers. The media could easily include the severe side effects number of several other vaccines to put things in context. Or they could include the total number of fully vaccinated adults and show a comparison to other risk scenarios. That would actually be helpful. Instead they just want to stir the pot.
It would be different if the news was actual simple reporting of the news (i.e the good old days with Cronkite). Today “news” is very much digested via the partisan programming of MSNBC, CNN and Fox. If you watch the first two, it’s doom and gloom. If you watch the latter, they don’t want you to even know there was a problem for the 6 J&Jers. Both sides are equally to blame.
Yes you can make the argument that news has always been slanted. Just by covering certain stories vs. others is a way of framing the daily conversation. But today the news cycle is run by the pundits and columnists, not the journalists.
The article I quoted was “the media” putting the numbers in perspective. I’m not sure why you think it was focusing on them as doom and gloom. I don’t watch the news 24/7, but I’ve seen the numbers put into perspective a lot.
No, not really. That’s just how some cared to interpret it. It was 6 known cases and wondering how many were out there unknown. If it were a much larger number, then there’s a major problem. It was paused because the “actual” number was unknown and they wanted to do more investigating to check. That takes time.
I don’t see the problem as the media (perhaps because I don’t watch much). I see the problem as people focusing on what they want to believe/hear.
My daughter goes to school in Orlando- has many friends who work at the parks. She was working at Disney till they shut down. If she can’t avoid them, she should enjoy herself. She never ate inside and was vigilant with both her mask and testing. We realized very quickly that Disney was a place we could go where they would control things.
I often laugh at myself over my own rules of what I think is safe or not safe!! My concern was not getting Covid myself, but giving it to others. It seems I avoided both.
@oldfort I don’t have a bad commute to my office, but I really don’t care to ever return to working in an office every day. I can get work done quickly and efficiently at home and don’t need to be sitting in an office all day. My company’s lease is up in 18 months and we are downsizing since the majority of staff feel the same way as I do.
My H’s company is moving in August and will be going to a set up where no one has offices and you can just come in and plug your laptop into a work station while in the office. They will have a couple of offices and a conference room people can use for meetings. They are lowering their monthly rent costs by 40% by using this set up. H is also happy only going into his office 1 day a week and plans to continue this as long as he is with this company.