Two states and two Disneys—California vs. Florida—and their radically different approaches to dealing with the pandemic.
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The happiest place on Earth has been mostly closed for about 10 months and probably won’t be re-opening anytime soon.
California isn’t allowing theme parks to re-open until the counties they’re located in have fewer than one COVID-19 infection per 100,000 residents for seven consecutive days. In Orange County, the current rate exceeds that amount by about 90 fold.
“We’re going to be stubborn about it,” California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) said in October of 2020.
Newsom’s stubbornness is unique. Every other Disney property in the world has re-opened. (In California, some of Disney’s retail and dining are open, but the rides and attractions remain closed.)
The city of Anaheim, where the Mouse provides 78,000 jobs and is the center of the local economy, looks like a ghost town.
Disney World in Orlando opened in July of 2020 as Florida’s case rate was climbing.
“The reopening amounts to a breathtaking effort by a corporation to prove that it can safely operate…at a highly dangerous time,” The New York Times observed at the time.
YouTubers created dark parodies, mocking the idea that the re-opening would cause outbreaks, which never came to pass.
This is the tale of two very different approaches to managing the pandemic and their impact on local economies. There’s no evidence that Newsom’s lockdowns have substantially stopped the spread of COVID-19.
The contrast between California and Florida reflects growing evidence that lockdowns are not an effective strategy for managing a viral respiratory epidemic, despite early studies suggesting otherwise.
A June 2020 paper in Nature claimed that lockdowns would save 3-4 million lives worldwide, but it assumed that as they stretched on, lockdowns would remain just as effective as in the early days of the pandemic. After it was published, places with stringent lockdowns, including California, the United Kingdom, and Italy, experienced second waves.
A possible reason is that lockdowns become less effective over time because the public grows weary of the social isolation and starts gathering in private households on a more frequent basis.
A January 5 study by a research team at Stanford compared countries that shut down “non-essential” businesses with ones that took less restrictive public health measures, like only banning large events and discouraging international travel. It found “no evidence that … [more stringent] lockdowns” contributed substantially to bringing down the case rate.
Neither California’s statewide restrictions nor Florida’s more laissez-faire approach have proven effective at suppressing the virus. But various Asian governments and Australia have, for now, mostly accomplished that feat—and not primarily through lockdowns.
Newsom lifted his stay-at-home order on January 25 on the grounds ICUs will have the required capacity in several weeks, but the state has withheld some of the data they used to make that projection. Theme parks will remain closed.
In the meantime, Disneyland has opened one of its parking lots as Orange County’s largest vaccination site.
So far, California has had one of the slowest vaccine rollouts in the nation.
“Without the rollout of the vaccine… proving not to be the best rollout as compared to the other states, maybe there’s a way we can responsibly sooner open up so that we can get back to business and back to surviving,” says Afram.
Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Graphics by Isaac Reese. Additional camera by John Osterhoudt.
Photo credits: Pool/ABACA/Newscom; JIM RUYMEN/UPI/Newscom; Jeff Gritchen/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom Jeff Gritchen/ZUMA Press/Newscom Daniel Ceng Shou-Yi/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Kim Klement/TNS/Newscom; Rafael Ben-Ari/Rafael Ben Ari/Newscom; Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune/TNS/Newscom; Anthony Behar/Sipa USA/Newscom; JIM RUYMEN/UPI/Newscom; Image of Sport/Newscom; Watchara Phomicinda/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Greg Lovett/ZUMA.
Music credits: “Happy Gypsy” by Max H.; “Floating Point” by Roei Shpigler; “No Longer Afraid,” “Shadows Rise,” “Dawn Drift” by Doug Kaufman licensed through Artlist.
Music credits: “Happy Gypsy” by Max H.; “Floating Point” by Roei Shpigler; “No Longer Afraid,” “Shadows Rise,” “Dawn Drift” by Doug Kaufman licensed through Artlist.
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