Coronavirus: Impact on Theme Parks
- Thread starter JammyH
- Start date
BlueSonicHD
Mega Poster
? sounds like an awful day out to me , where's all the fun
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
If permitted... All Merlin parks will be open July 4th too... They’re making the very clear in all of their recent communications.
Matt N
CF Legend
You can still have fun! I fully appreciate that some will not like these measures, and that’s fine, but I personally don’t think they will take away from the enjoyment for me. Until a vaccine or treatment arrives, we’ll just have to make the best of a bad situation.
By 2021, these measures hopefully shouldn’t be needed.
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
I agree, literally nothing in there that puts me off... The reduced capacity on rides could be a bummer, but at least they’re spacing ‘groups’ not individuals, so could actually mean just a row or two removed on some trains. This will also be offset somewhat by the reduced park capacity.
This virus is probably with us for the long haul, I Repeat... Lockdowns do not solve the problem long term, and were never intended to. The sooner people get that and learn to live with it the better.
Having said that, seems like the perfect post to eat my words a little, I said earlier in the thread I don’t see them finding a vaccine... I think I may have been wrong! I genuinely think the oxford one is looking good, and I’m guessing the government are at least hopeful too, given they’re already securing manufacture of it and investing millions into it’s manufacture before Sept!!!
Matt N
CF Legend
I have a question; if the Oxford vaccine is successful and they’re able to immunise en masse by the end of 2020, will these measures be needed (or will parks choose to retain them) after the 2020 season? My guess is no, personally; the way in which most parks that have reopened or are planning to reopen soon have applied it looks pretty temporary, and it must be a bit of a nuisance for parks to try and work around in the long term.
Actually, let me rephrase that. I think some of the smaller measures (e.g. temperature checks) may be retained, a bit like how parks added bag security after 9/11, but I don’t see physical distancing in queue lines and on rides being retained beyond the vaccine or treatment, personally.
Actually, let me rephrase that. I think some of the smaller measures (e.g. temperature checks) may be retained, a bit like how parks added bag security after 9/11, but I don’t see physical distancing in queue lines and on rides being retained beyond the vaccine or treatment, personally.
Sounds like a good day out to me, knowing I can have fun in a safe environment.
Glad merlin have put sensible measures in place, let’s hope the rest of the UK parks follow suit and do the same.
Lockdown was only here to protect the NHS initially, yet that slowly transitioned into trying to outrun the virus altogether.
I'm not so convinced of the latter model at all. And the damage we are doing to some of our industries at the moment cannot be overlooked.
Whilst the rest of Europe is looking to open up, the UK government is giving Easyjet a self destruct button.
I think some of the measures are running into insanity IF what the government admitted to be the case in today's press briefing "The virus does appear to have similar characteristics to seasonal flu" is true. The devolved government approach and bickering over schools seem sick jokes to me. What a farce.
As for what the theme parks are all proposing, I fully understand where they are coming from as they cannot possibly be seen to be a spreader of the virus.
I really hope 4th of July is when we see UK theme parks open and not later at all. There is no way they can all survive being closed an entire year if there is no governmental support (ie if it stops soon say). The lack of cash flow then surely has to be a massive problem. Having all these parks operate in Europe and none in the UK would be madness surely.
Just read the owner of Bella Italia and Cafe Rouge are giving notice to appoint administrators. This is an initial step to protect themselves but hope it will not turn out bad. Love eating at Cafe Rouge.
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roomraider
Best Topic Starter
Ughh some of these crazy anti lockdown people (not on here but out in the world) drive me mad.
The way I see it is this, lockdowns don't solve the problem. However if we all went back to pre-lockdown state we would have exactly the same issue we had in March. Cases would spike and we would be back at square one, as cases increased the NHS would be in danger of being overwhelmed. Lockdown was to keep the NHS from being overwhelmed and the process of easing things slowly is exactly the same.
I don't particularly agree with how the government has done things but of course we haven't opened up as much as some of the places in mainland Europe. We have way more cases than most places in mainland Europe. We are essentially a little behind them on the curve.
Arguably there's an advantage to being slightly behind now as we can see what happens with other countries and what works and learn from that.
As has been said before its all about that R number. If you can open places X and Y and keep the the number at an acceptable level, prevent an increase and prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed then great. But when you open place Z and the R increases too much you have a problem.
Now I'm willing to bet precicely no one on this forum or anyone in the General Public knows exactly how opening cafes, restaurants, shops, theme parks and tourist attractions will affect that number. Because no one does.
Each step of reopening will obviously increase the R number simply because more people will come into contact with each other than if they were all closed. But how much will it increase that number? If they all open as they were before lockdown it will obviously increase it more than is acceptable and a few weeks later we will be back at square one as the R number shoots up and the NHS can't cope.
So the only option is to open things slowly and see what happens. And if cases increase too much then you reverse that decision.
This whole thing is an incredibly difficult tightrope to walk for any country. You make one or two missteps and thousands more people will die so governments are being careful.
On top of that you have the possibility of a mutation making things much worse. Now that may seem unlikely but it's exactly what happened with spannish flu in 1917. A relatively passive (although still deadly) strain hit first and by August of that year people thought the flu had run its course. Of course we know now what a poor assumption that was as the virus mutated and killed more people that the entirity of WW1.
Now once again this may feel an unlikely outcome but the more people have the virus the more mutations there will be. Let's say on average a mutation that makes the virus worse happens once every million cases (Ive plucked this number out of the air for demonstration purposes) then obviously the less cases you have the less chance of a potentially bad mutation. We know there are plenty of mutations occurring already just none so far have made it much worse so the less people infected the better in that regard.
There's an argument herd immunity can negate that but until there is a scientific study that confirms that people who have caught the virus retain immunity for a significant amount of time then you can't take that chance. (by scientific study I mean a peer reviewed, published in a reputable journal and verified, and not something some government minister or president says)
Well I typed way way more than I planned. But in short and for those TLDR people.
No one knows exactly how any given change to a lockdown will affect the R number. Everyone's watching everyone else to see how their lockdown easing measures pan out. And really don't expect everything to be open normally until there's a vaccine because if there's a chance the NHS will be overwhelmed at any point you better believe we will be on lockdown all over again.
The way I see it is this, lockdowns don't solve the problem. However if we all went back to pre-lockdown state we would have exactly the same issue we had in March. Cases would spike and we would be back at square one, as cases increased the NHS would be in danger of being overwhelmed. Lockdown was to keep the NHS from being overwhelmed and the process of easing things slowly is exactly the same.
I don't particularly agree with how the government has done things but of course we haven't opened up as much as some of the places in mainland Europe. We have way more cases than most places in mainland Europe. We are essentially a little behind them on the curve.
Arguably there's an advantage to being slightly behind now as we can see what happens with other countries and what works and learn from that.
As has been said before its all about that R number. If you can open places X and Y and keep the the number at an acceptable level, prevent an increase and prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed then great. But when you open place Z and the R increases too much you have a problem.
Now I'm willing to bet precicely no one on this forum or anyone in the General Public knows exactly how opening cafes, restaurants, shops, theme parks and tourist attractions will affect that number. Because no one does.
Each step of reopening will obviously increase the R number simply because more people will come into contact with each other than if they were all closed. But how much will it increase that number? If they all open as they were before lockdown it will obviously increase it more than is acceptable and a few weeks later we will be back at square one as the R number shoots up and the NHS can't cope.
So the only option is to open things slowly and see what happens. And if cases increase too much then you reverse that decision.
This whole thing is an incredibly difficult tightrope to walk for any country. You make one or two missteps and thousands more people will die so governments are being careful.
On top of that you have the possibility of a mutation making things much worse. Now that may seem unlikely but it's exactly what happened with spannish flu in 1917. A relatively passive (although still deadly) strain hit first and by August of that year people thought the flu had run its course. Of course we know now what a poor assumption that was as the virus mutated and killed more people that the entirity of WW1.
Now once again this may feel an unlikely outcome but the more people have the virus the more mutations there will be. Let's say on average a mutation that makes the virus worse happens once every million cases (Ive plucked this number out of the air for demonstration purposes) then obviously the less cases you have the less chance of a potentially bad mutation. We know there are plenty of mutations occurring already just none so far have made it much worse so the less people infected the better in that regard.
There's an argument herd immunity can negate that but until there is a scientific study that confirms that people who have caught the virus retain immunity for a significant amount of time then you can't take that chance. (by scientific study I mean a peer reviewed, published in a reputable journal and verified, and not something some government minister or president says)
Well I typed way way more than I planned. But in short and for those TLDR people.
No one knows exactly how any given change to a lockdown will affect the R number. Everyone's watching everyone else to see how their lockdown easing measures pan out. And really don't expect everything to be open normally until there's a vaccine because if there's a chance the NHS will be overwhelmed at any point you better believe we will be on lockdown all over again.
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
I would suggest the opposite is true, science would expect at least some period of immunity, as long as antibodies are created, and this is already a known fact for covid, as it can and is being measured with antigen testing. So unless proven otherwise in a peer reviewed study, like with almost every other virus, some level / period of immunity is presumed.
There are also studies into immunity prepublished currently being peer reviewed, such as this one https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.30.20085613v1 here’s a quote from the conclusion “232: Reassuringly, we found that almost all participants with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection in our 233: study mounted an IgG immune response to this disease.”
That being said we generally don’t need a peer reviewed study either way to know. The fact that no reinfections have been ‘confirmed’ globally, just a handful of anecdotal cases, said to be testing errors. Sweden has been studying this, and whilst there’s nothing (I’m aware of) published or peer reviewed from Sweden, do you honestly think they’d hang the lives of their entire nation on it if they were not sure?
On top of this, the NHS is actively treating patients with other people’s anti bodies in a clinical convalescent plasma trial. I don’t think they’d be doing this if all of those antibodies, we’re now able to test for, were useless ? https://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/how-you-can-help/convalescent-plasma-clinical-trial/
The real point to your question is... Do these antibodies last long enough to prevent a significant second wave in the winter, if the virus turns out to have some seasonality to it??? It’s likely to be the case, but a long way from being a given, and so is a huge concern.
Studies into SARS and MERS showed that immunity peaked after months, and waned slowly after that. So there is hope that it will last long enough to avert a large second wave in winter, in countries with high infection rates. But it’s not at all confirmed, and still a huge concern requiring some social distancing measures to continue. It is also ‘hoped’ that social distancing will reduce the spread of other seasonal illnesses limiting their drain on health services and saving capacity for any potential second wave.
Edit: sorry reading that back it sounds like I am focused too much on the fact that immunity is now all but confirmed, and not enough on your concern of ‘for how long.’ the reason for that was because the subject was lifting the lockdown... Whilst we do currently have some immunity, lifting the lockdown is not going to affect the R0 now, as much as not being in lockdown when when that immunity starts to wane, probably in or after this winter. So it’s absolutely the right time to slowly and carefully start injecting some life back into the economy... But without a vaccine, or a miracle disappearance of the virus, brace yourself for further measures from winter onwards...
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roomraider
Best Topic Starter
I guess what my main point from this was was that it's a dangerous thing to base an entire government policy on until its 100% proven either way. Most Governments are obviously being careful here as basing their policies around this could lead to issues further along the line.
The herd immunity thing could work fine its just we don't have all the information yet. (we could end up with a common flu like situation where mutations mean you aren't immune to what comes along a few months later even if you are immune to the strain that you caught last time) we just don't really know yet. Any government that gets this wrong is going to be made into a pariah.
And the not what some government minister says comment was more aimed at that orange guy in charge over the pond who wouldn't know a scientific trial or let's face it fact if one hit him in the face.
Whatever happens its likely this is going to be a long haul and I don't necessarily think the fact that lockdown is being lifted faster in some places and slower here is necessarily a bad thing. There's going to be a wide range of speeds when it comes to easing lockdown around the world and if we are on the slightly slower side of the bell curve then fine. Whichever way the government goes here it's going to upset part of the population. Its kind of a no win situation.
Right now lifting restrictions slowly is exactly the right thing to do, just carefully because everyone's feeling around in the dark a bit here and any major missteps in doing things too quickly could be a lot worse than taking an extra week or two.
It's going to be an interesting few months either way.
As an aside I do wonder how long we could have the 2 week quarantine upon arrival. One major issue in the future could be that no matter how good your measures have been, the interconnectedness of the world these days mean that if one other country really cocks up their side of things and sees a sudden rise in cases this could then have a ripple effect across many other nations, especially with a 2 week incubation period. It must be something governments are aware of but its another one that will be extremely difficult to predict.
The head of Visit Britain is discussing a possible extra Bank Holiday for the UK in October with the government. It would be near half term. Obviously mostly for the leisure industry to take advantage of.
It would be late in the season for theme parks for sure, but perhaps they would benefit even if most of the Halloween celebrations will probably be quite different this year. You can have fluke amazing weather in October. I remember early October 2018 feeling like a great summer.
It would be late in the season for theme parks for sure, but perhaps they would benefit even if most of the Halloween celebrations will probably be quite different this year. You can have fluke amazing weather in October. I remember early October 2018 feeling like a great summer.
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
That’s all fair ? But I would also attach the same caution to lockdowns, particularly the ones that were more effective at keeping case numbers low, because we just don’t know if that’s going to be any benefit at all in the long run, it’s as yet, unproven. One thing that is universally agreed upon is that it would be catastrophic to have to lockdown much more than has already been done, potentially a bigger human tragedy than the virus. So I genuinely mean it when I say, I hope it doesn’t come back to bite the most successful in the ass.
Thankfully in the UK we’re somewhere in the middle, it hasn’t been a successful lockdown in some ways, the case and death counts are high, but it was very successful at flattening the curve enough to keep the NHS functioning, and there’s almost certainly been enough cases to offer some protection and slowing of the R0, even if only small and temporary, it will help.
I fully agree that because we simply cannot know to what level any protection extends, the process must be slow, careful and considered, and I think we’ve also got that right, I would have preferred 2 weekly intervals between each step, but I did expect 2 to 4 so cannot complain. In fact (blowing my own trumpet here, I have to since it looks like my vaccine prediction was way out ??) if you look back at the posts I made months ago about when restrictions would start to be lifted and when most restrictions would be lifted by, I was almost spot on. So this is exactly the route I’d expected (and hoped) they’d take.
As for the quarantine, it was being bounded around in the media yesterday that the government have already had a change of minds. In an apparent lifeline to the travel industry it was said that they are considering allowing ‘sky bridges’ between the UK and countries with low cases numbers and a low R0. This would be similar to the original quarantine in place in the UK before our outbreak, where you only self isolate if travelling from a country with a current outbreak or developing situation. This would be the perfect way to go long term IMO.
Edit: Today’s copy of the times has arrived, they’re carrying it front page, so I’d say there’s a fairly good chance of this happening.
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Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
I guess that was in line with the government extension to the scheme... The good news is the part time plan for beyond, allowing them to give you part time hours while furloughed
It’s not currently looking great for people in your industry, I really hope they see some sense and adopt this sky bridge scheme. There is enough demand there for summer holidays to mean opening at least some routes up would really help your industry... Fingers crossed for you ?
caffeine_demon
Strata Poster
Because of course,. there's no way that slide would get infected!
BlueSonicHD
Mega Poster
what if its a rainy day and the slide gets all wet,
does the slide get faster as the day goes on the more grease and fat gets deposited on it
what about all the insects that get stuck to the grease
they over thought this
just throw the food at people. alot easier
does the slide get faster as the day goes on the more grease and fat gets deposited on it
what about all the insects that get stuck to the grease
they over thought this
just throw the food at people. alot easier