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Someone linked unironically to a right-wing news site. I wasn't the one who brought "politics" into the mix. Also, how is discussing the state of our healthcare political? It's simply fact.

I have a feeling the people who think we have a great healthcare system are not poor and disabled like people like me.

Also, tell me how a healthcare system can be great when a single hospital-grade ventilator costs between $25,000 and $50,000. (https://www.silive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/what-is-a-ventilator-how-much-does-one-cost.html)

How can a healthcare system be great when so many people are uninsured? When so many people call Uber or Lyft to take them to the hospital because it's cheaper than an ambulance?

I'm thisclose to straight-up leaving this forum. I have seen too many back-handed right-wing, racist comments over the last few years, and I honestly feel unwelcome here.

God, I hate politics, and I hate President Anusmouth, and yeah, I've decided to go scorched earth here because I am so DONE with all of this.

#VoteBlueNoMatterWho!

From an unbiased source:

"He said that expected increases in National Health Service capacity and ongoing restrictions to people's movements make him "reasonably confident" the health service can cope when the predicted peak of the epidemic arrives in two or three weeks."

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238578-uk-has-enough-intensive-care-units-for-coronavirus-expert-predicts/#ixzz6HocWwffQ

Here's the video of him reporting to the committee; so no paraphrasing:

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1242797985139957760

His new calculations take into account the preparations the UK have done to try to flatten the curve, and apparently it's working.

But here in the US... well, firstly, we have a terrible healthcare system. Secondly, there are still too many people not taking the "stay at home" orders seriously, and there are many states that haven't even locked down at all.

The Imperial College report gave multiple predictions based on how much or how little action is taken to flatten the curve. The UK did what was needed and so they will hit the lower range of the predictions. The US? Not even remotely.

Yeah, the Imperial College report is probably one of the most important things released so far. I really highly recommend people read it, or at least read a decent summary of it: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239975682643357696.html

Ooof, yeah. My friend and I were just discussing another road trip this year, but it's all gonna depend on if things have improved by July.

IF things get better, the tentative idea is taking the manga library up to Green Bay mid-July for Kitsune Con. Weekend after that would be running Pachinko in New Orleans at the last ever Mechacon. Then it'd be Los Angeles the next weekend with the library at Animanga. And then on the way back home, the next weekend in Phoenix with Pachinko at... I can't remember the name of that con.

So... fingers crossed. Last year's road trip was super fun, even with all the stress that came with it because of vehicle troubles.

U-Haul is offering a free month of public storage to college students who are getting kicked out of their dorms because of this, which is a really nice gesture.

The reason to slow the spread is to "flatten the curve" so that our hospitals and medical personnel don't get overwhelmed. Italy was too late to do so and now they are triaging. Not a good thing.

Big conventions getting cancelled or postponed - Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle is postponed. Planet Comic Con in Kansas City (MO) postponed. Naka Kon in KC (KS) cancelled (but might schedule a later date).

The cancelled cons are really gonna do a number on artists. So many of them rely almost solely on appearing at cons to sell prints/etc. I have friends who might literally lose their house because of the loss of income... Hopefully the US steps up and puts a moratorium on evictions; I know there's at least one US City (San Jose) that has done so.

I wouldn't be opposed to one of those Euro-Fighter coasters using the tower for theming for its drop. My friends and I rode Dare Devil Dive at Six Flags Over Georgia and.... WOW. It was the most fun, most SMOOTH coaster I've ever been on.

And it wouldn't be hard to theme it to something like bats diving into a cave or dare devils doing stunts - tie it into the Ozark dare devil society or whatever it is that is the theme at American Plunge.

...oh. :-(

Ooo... like... learning about how the winter holidays are celebrated in different parts of the world? Because if that's what it is, YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

Well, Disney has already closed their parks in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and, most recently, Tokyo. You know it's bad when Disney closes their parks, especially as it was just at the start of their busiest season (Chinese New Year).

It's gonna be interesting to see if they eventually close here in the US. If it gets bad enough that Disney closes, I imagine the other theme park companies will follow suit.

The latest news today is that there are 20 people in self-isolation in St. Louis awaiting test results. So while most of the cases have been on the west coast, it may actually be closer to us than it seems.

When something new like that is only available in a certain area, I'd say it's probably being tested before offering it nationwide.

And omg, I would SO get that... Well... One thing I'd change on it or make an option of either/or is I'm not interested in White Water, so unlimited visits there don't appeal to me.... So give me an option to have unlimited visits to Dollywood in place of WW.

Like, seriously, I REALLY want Herschend to come out with a SDC/DW combo pass. It'd be very nice and my friends and I would use it a LOT. We got Six Flags memberships this last year because we were in both the Chicago area and the Atlanta area during the same road trip, so we were able to go to both local Six Flags parks and already basically got our money's worth.

We live in Missouri, but do a lot of traveling, often through Tennessee, so a SDC/DW pass would be used a LOT.

According to SDC in a reply on a comment on that Mystic River video, the tower indeed "doesn't exist yet."

Whoops. Added one too many zeroes to the DL daily attendance. It's 50,000, not 500,000. I've got back and edited it...

As my MSU English Society t-shirt says, "I'm an English major... YOU do the math!"

I personally don't mind the changes, but then again, I've been a rabid fan of theme parks in general for ages, so I've learned a lot about how the industry works and SDC is just trying to keep up. If they were to just do the same thing every year and not change/update/add... crowd growth would stagnate and they'd eventually start losing guests/money.

My generation has a different idea of what we are looking for entertainment-wise. I think the best suggestion I've seen so far with this more recent discussion is to have set times scheduled for street shows and craft demos. The economy has a big chunk of families having to have both parents working or single people working multiple jobs just to make ends meet. So when we DO plan a vacation, it tends to be done with careful planning and budgeting.

Set times that are easily findable means we can see ahead of time what to do in what order when we visit the park. Basically, just see how Disney does it. With the Magicband system, you're able to reserve a time for rides and then go about your day until your time comes up. Virtual queuing and boarding pass systems are become common because we want to be able to schedule our day. And with character meet & greets, they have set times for specific characters at specific meeting spots. I think the only "streetmosphere" I've seen that as far as I know doesn't have a set schedule is the citizens of Hollywood at Hollywood Studios. But I could be wrong about that; Disney's pretty good at having a schedule for everything.

And speaking of Disney, we can also look to it as an example of a park with increasing crowds in a park with infrastructure/pathing/etc built for the expected hundreds a day when it opened in the 50s, not the 50,000 a day they get on average now.

So they had to widen paths, which sadly meant getting rid of some trees and what-not. But the result has been much better flow of crowds and therefore less stress and tension in the crowd and therefore people having a happier day.

SDC was not built for high attendance. Their annual attendance when they first opened in '60 was 120k. FOR THE WHOLE YEAR. Now they bring in 20k+ several days a week (depending on the season).

Unfortunately, in order to ease the flow of the crowds, trees are gonna have to be taken down for paths to be widened. But there are still SO many trees. A few here and there won't be a big deal. I'm sure they've taken down plenty of trees that we've never even noticed before. Plus, they plant multiple trees elsewhere for every tree they cut down, so they're being conscientious about our planet (which cannot be said for a vast majority of multi-million/billion dollar corporations).

ANYWAY, TL;DR: I am okay with the changes at SDC because they have to make the park future-proof for the younger generations and the increasing crowds. And I appreciate the updates you give us, Swoosh, and I hope you continue to let us know about them. Thank you.