Those articles are talking about worst case planning by Disney. Perhaps prudent on their part but the news likes to always post worst case scenarios. There is still a chance the parks will be open in 2020. No one knows, probably not even Disney.
I'd keep an eye on that. I am seeing a lot more articles and predictions that the Disney parks won't reopen until 2021. There are also some saying that maybe the parks will open on a very limited basis. As with Hawaii, do you want to go until you can enjoy the whole experience.
And all I was saying is, if you're planning a trip to visit the Disney parks, keep your eyes on what is going on.
I agree, and DVC members are sure counting on it. You cannot find 3 days in a row at any Disney parks from 10/1 on. Summer is not a bad time to open. It's miserably hot, and that heat kills the virus in seconds. Disney is not going to let their employees be without work for months and months. It's ridiculous to believe they would do that to people.
So they do have a chart. Seems a bit telling. Paranoia is alive and well in Hawaii. The politicians and the Hawaiian natives have wanted us to stay out of their state for a while, so maybe this virus is a good way to keep us out. Any bus ride on Oahu (tour bus) will give you a nice lecture on how we took over their country by force.
What's notable here to me is that Hawaii appears now to be well within the capabilities of testing, tracing and isolating so as to be able to quickly contain any community spread. Apart from the risk of a large number of carriers coming in as tourists, it seems Hawaii could open up quite a bit. Not that there may not be new infections/cases by doing so, but they could be able to contain it. I tend to think they are being perhaps more conservative than necessary with respect to in-state activity and they should start allowing residents to get back to normal, with appropriate safeguards (no large crowds, social distancing). Tourism is another issue, of course. In that arena it seems they need to continue strict 14-day quarantine unless you demonstrate you are not infected. Get tested within, say, four hours of departure, upon arrival, or any time thereafter, and you don't have to quarantine.
I think the starting premise is that the chances of becoming infected while in Hawaii should be very, very, small. You'll hopefully have been tested before coming (or upon arriving) so the only way to be showing symptoms would be for you to have gotten it there. But if they have few or no active cases, that's quite unlikely.
It's not paranoia if the whole world *is* out to get you.
I think this is the problem. They could seal themselves off and reduce all COVID cases to zero. But that doesn't help them longer term and that probably shouldn't be the goal. Flattening the curve isn't about reducing cases to zero, but rather not overburgening the health care system. Of course, I don't think Hawaii has the best healthcare system. Not sure why, taxes are high, lots of hotel tax, lots of travelers paying tax. If they do reduce cases to zero, their only way to keep it that way is to still quarantine new arrivals for 14 days which also keeps travelers away. They have no easy way out if a vaccine is 12-18 months away. While COVID free would be a great goal, it shouldn't be the goal. The virus is here to stay. Balancing cases with the economic cost is something that needs to be weighed.
Not necessarily. The other way is to ensure people coming have taken a very recent test and it shows no evidence of them being infected. So they get tested before they come, or upon arrival, or quarantined until they take a test providing they are not infected.
That doesn't help that much, even if they tested them and had the results immediately as they were getting on the plane to HI, there would still likely be quite a new number of cases get through. The current testing is no where near perfect in terms of finding who is contagious or infected and it's only historical data. One may be exposed around the time of the test and contagious going forward but have a negative test not to mention, false negatives. And current evidence suggests that the antibody testing isn't good at predicting who's protected going forward either. But it's a moving target as the information and understanding is changing daily.
This type of requirement still has the propensity of keeping people, perhaps most people, away. I doubt we will ever get to a place were we are able to test large percentages of the population. Rapid testing isn't as reliable as those other tests where people wait 48 hours for their results, so as Dean indicated the ill may still get through. The goal with social distancing and quarantine isn't about getting cases down to 0. It never was. It was about flattening the curve. If Hawaii's health care system can't handle the burden of possibly caring for sick from the mainland or the possibility of people brining the venus from the mainland, then perhaps they should keep the 14 day quarantine until a vaccine is implemented and wide spread, but they will to suffer the economic burden if they go that route.
Parts of the country are starting to open up. How "open" do you want things to be? Completely open to travel, all business. I get that you have trips planned that you want to take. The rest of us have lives we'd like to get back to as well. But, I'm also listening to the health professionals, those who are cautioning that it might be too early to open up.
I don't care about my trips, I don't care about going to Disney before they can open safely or going to Hawaii next month. I am not selfish. I care about people and depression and starvation. If you aren't seeing the long lines at food banks, then change your television channel to a station that cares.
As I alluded to above, we really have no idea what a posite or negative test means at this point or even that having antibodies is protective from future risk. Then there's the false positive and false negative rates to work out as well.