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[Praire Wind]

Hey - I've been lurking around here for *years* and finally got around to making an account.

And the thing I can't help but notice here is that no one pointed out that a *lot* of the folks who work at SDC are older, and therefore *possibly* more at risk from COVID-19.

Although not quite a walking antique myself (yet) I do worry about a lot of good people who work there every year.  Many of them have existing health issues, but get up every morning, help open up the Park and welcome us in.  They smile and chitchat with us, and make us feel welcome and valued.

They are - for our family - as much an "attraction" as any building or ride or show.  It's the *people* who work there that make SDC a great place to go, year after year. 

So I will feel good about going back to SDC when I know that the folks who work there are safe and as protected as they can be. 

I'll be fine - my family will be fine - if we have to wait a while longer to visit.  But it's not worth the cost of any of those folks to me. 

And, for the record?  We glove & mask up before we go anywhere - because we try to protect *everyone* that we interact with.  I don't care who you are, or where you work, or what your politics or religion are - I'm not going to be the person who infects you if I can help it.  We *do* know someone who died from COVID-19; a family friend who worked side-by-side with my husband for years and was hospitalized, on a vent for 12 days before he died alone in ICU.  His family never saw him, never touched him again after he entered the hospital, and they had to be quarantined at home for 2 weeks (as did our entire family, and all of his co-workers and *their* families).  There was no funeral, just a burial.  Hopefully at some point in the future, we can all get together at a memorial for him.

I think that in the end, what will matter most to SDC (and really anyplace where employees have to deal with the public in general) is how we look out for each other. 

I'm going to go back into "lurk" mode now.  Y'all stay safe and healthy (and @chittlins, for crying out loud stay off that ding-dang hill)

[History Buff]

Hey - I've been lurking around here for *years* and finally got around to making an account.

And the thing I can't help but notice here is that no one pointed out that a *lot* of the folks who work at SDC are older, and therefore *possibly* more at risk from COVID-19.

Although not quite a walking antique myself (yet) I do worry about a lot of good people who work there every year.  Many of them have existing health issues, but get up every morning, help open up the Park and welcome us in.  They smile and chitchat with us, and make us feel welcome and valued.

They are - for our family - as much an "attraction" as any building or ride or show.  It's the *people* who work there that make SDC a great place to go, year after year. 

So I will feel good about going back to SDC when I know that the folks who work there are safe and as protected as they can be. 

I'll be fine - my family will be fine - if we have to wait a while longer to visit.  But it's not worth the cost of any of those folks to me. 

And, for the record?  We glove & mask up before we go anywhere - because we try to protect *everyone* that we interact with.  I don't care who you are, or where you work, or what your politics or religion are - I'm not going to be the person who infects you if I can help it.  We *do* know someone who died from COVID-19; a family friend who worked side-by-side with my husband for years and was hospitalized, on a vent for 12 days before he died alone in ICU.  His family never saw him, never touched him again after he entered the hospital, and they had to be quarantined at home for 2 weeks (as did our entire family, and all of his co-workers and *their* families).  There was no funeral, just a burial.  Hopefully at some point in the future, we can all get together at a memorial for him.

I think that in the end, what will matter most to SDC (and really anyplace where employees have to deal with the public in general) is how we look out for each other. 

I'm going to go back into "lurk" mode now.  Y'all stay safe and healthy (and @chittlins, for crying out loud stay off that ding-dang hill)

We are sorry for your loss, and all that you have had to experience during this time, Praire Wind. Please chime in whenever you want.

[Duelist]

And welcome to the site, Praire Wind!

[chittlins]

Hey - I've been lurking around here for *years* and finally got around to making an account.

And the thing I can't help but notice here is that no one pointed out that a *lot* of the folks who work at SDC are older, and therefore *possibly* more at risk from COVID-19.

Although not quite a walking antique myself (yet) I do worry about a lot of good people who work there every year.  Many of them have existing health issues, but get up every morning, help open up the Park and welcome us in.  They smile and chitchat with us, and make us feel welcome and valued.

They are - for our family - as much an "attraction" as any building or ride or show.  It's the *people* who work there that make SDC a great place to go, year after year. 

So I will feel good about going back to SDC when I know that the folks who work there are safe and as protected as they can be. 

I'll be fine - my family will be fine - if we have to wait a while longer to visit.  But it's not worth the cost of any of those folks to me. 

And, for the record?  We glove & mask up before we go anywhere - because we try to protect *everyone* that we interact with.  I don't care who you are, or where you work, or what your politics or religion are - I'm not going to be the person who infects you if I can help it.  We *do* know someone who died from COVID-19; a family friend who worked side-by-side with my husband for years and was hospitalized, on a vent for 12 days before he died alone in ICU.  His family never saw him, never touched him again after he entered the hospital, and they had to be quarantined at home for 2 weeks (as did our entire family, and all of his co-workers and *their* families).  There was no funeral, just a burial.  Hopefully at some point in the future, we can all get together at a memorial for him.

I think that in the end, what will matter most to SDC (and really anyplace where employees have to deal with the public in general) is how we look out for each other. 

I'm going to go back into "lurk" mode now.  Y'all stay safe and healthy (and @chittlins, for crying out loud stay off that ding-dang hill)

Sorry for your lose and I can't avoid that hill.

[KBCraig]

Just FYI,My girlfriend is a nursing home administrator and has had to self quarantine away from our home because of irresponsible people who go out without protection. So save me the drama topper. I am retired and am free to do as I please. She has told me several times it is her responsibility to not bring it home. Just as it is anyones who goes out. Yesterday in Missouri it was like nothing ever happened. All the people out without protection potentially infecting others, just because our shortsighted govoner decides to lift the order. Death projections for June are already up and people are acting like its over.

I'm curious: while she's self-quarantining away from your home, how is she self-quarantining from her job and the patients in her nursing home?

How is she getting her food, and other basic necessities of life?

And how are you getting yours, without venturing out into the world?

As of yesterday's numbers, New Hampshire (where I live) has had 111 deaths attributed to COVID-19. Just this week we found out that 84 of those were in long-term care facilities, meaning only 27 deaths (1% of all cases) were in the general population.

All of those LTCF deaths were in privately operated facilities. In NH, every county has a nursing home operated by the county government, but we've had zero deaths in those. And as far as I'm aware, zero positive cases.

So that was a long way around to get to my point: you're not at risk from her, unless hers is one of those facilities with an outbreak. If it's not, then her population is at risk every time she leaves and then returns, because she has no way to avoid interacting with the world, even if she's staying distant from your home.

[runner1960]

Just FYI,My girlfriend is a nursing home administrator and has had to self quarantine away from our home because of irresponsible people who go out without protection. So save me the drama topper. I am retired and am free to do as I please. She has told me several times it is her responsibility to not bring it home. Just as it is anyones who goes out. Yesterday in Missouri it was like nothing ever happened. All the people out without protection potentially infecting others, just because our shortsighted govoner decides to lift the order. Death projections for June are already up and people are acting like its over.

I'm curious: while she's self-quarantining away from your home, how is she self-quarantining from her job and the patients in her nursing home?

How is she getting her food, and other basic necessities of life?

And how are you getting yours, without venturing out into the world?

As of yesterday's numbers, New Hampshire (where I live) has had 111 deaths attributed to COVID-19. Just this week we found out that 84 of those were in long-term care facilities, meaning only 27 deaths (1% of all cases) were in the general population.

All of those LTCF deaths were in privately operated facilities. In NH, every county has a nursing home operated by the county government, but we've had zero deaths in those. And as far as I'm aware, zero positive cases.

So that was a long way around to get to my point: you're not at risk from her, unless hers is one of those facilities with an outbreak. If it's not, then her population is at risk every time she leaves and then returns, because she has no way to avoid interacting with the world, even if she's staying distant from your home.

She did not go to her job.She was in a dedicated room till the quarantine was over in a hotel. I also never said I did not venture out into the world. I take all the precautions. I do Sams club pickup. Insta cart. I use a N95 mask when I enter a store, and carry Clorox wipes with me.
And no they did not have A outbreak in her facility, but A couple CNA's had contact with infected people. The company policy was that all people who had contact with the CNAs had to quarantine. Luckily they had placed a policy in place that CNA's were to work with only dedicated people. So, Only a few residents had to quarantine in rooms.

[saladdays]

Hey - I've been lurking around here for *years* and finally got around to making an account.

And the thing I can't help but notice here is that no one pointed out that a *lot* of the folks who work at SDC are older, and therefore *possibly* more at risk from COVID-19.

Although not quite a walking antique myself (yet) I do worry about a lot of good people who work there every year.  Many of them have existing health issues, but get up every morning, help open up the Park and welcome us in.  They smile and chitchat with us, and make us feel welcome and valued.

They are - for our family - as much an "attraction" as any building or ride or show.  It's the *people* who work there that make SDC a great place to go, year after year. 

So I will feel good about going back to SDC when I know that the folks who work there are safe and as protected as they can be. 

I'll be fine - my family will be fine - if we have to wait a while longer to visit.  But it's not worth the cost of any of those folks to me. 

And, for the record?  We glove & mask up before we go anywhere - because we try to protect *everyone* that we interact with.  I don't care who you are, or where you work, or what your politics or religion are - I'm not going to be the person who infects you if I can help it.  We *do* know someone who died from COVID-19; a family friend who worked side-by-side with my husband for years and was hospitalized, on a vent for 12 days before he died alone in ICU.  His family never saw him, never touched him again after he entered the hospital, and they had to be quarantined at home for 2 weeks (as did our entire family, and all of his co-workers and *their* families).  There was no funeral, just a burial.  Hopefully at some point in the future, we can all get together at a memorial for him.

I think that in the end, what will matter most to SDC (and really anyplace where employees have to deal with the public in general) is how we look out for each other. 

I'm going to go back into "lurk" mode now.  Y'all stay safe and healthy (and @chittlins, for crying out loud stay off that ding-dang hill)

Thanks for the post, and sorry about your loss.

I could have sworn that we had at least a comment or two in this thread about the fact that many older people work at SDC, but I can't seem to find it. I know I at least thought about it, and came to the conclusion that, at least temporarily, the park may be populated with younger people needing jobs (not necessarily teenagers and young adults, but more people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s). I hope that doesn't prevent the older, regular employees to come back at some point when they are ready. It certainly will be a fine line that everyone will have to walk.

[shavethewhales]

On masks...

If you are infected or carrying the Wuflu, wearing a mask all the time while your body is trying to shed the virus only makes you intakeb more of the virus. It is like taking virus steriods. This is why you see the huge outbreaks in close up confined places like meat packing lines and nursing homes. Wearing a mask is the ultimate confined up close space. It can make a person that could have likely been asymptomatic  intake more and more of the virus till it finally take hold. To all the Jethros out there this isn't rocket surgery.and why it wasn't mandated in the first place.

The homemade masks are useless for the most part. They have gaps, too thin to really capture anything as small as a virus. Unless they fit snugly and you have Macgyver'd some better homemade filtration like using clean hepa vaccum bags or coffee filters to layered between the fabric. It is all just feel good, false sense of security garbage. The reason it became such an issue is the media used it to criticize Orange Man Bad and feed their TDS, an ax in which to take hacks with.

Sorry, but this is completely false. You will not "activate" the virus or make yourself sick wearing a mask. This is a debunked conspiracy theory that the crazy anti-sense crowd is trying to spread through the plandemic nonsense.

Masks are not entirely effective, this is known. What is also known is that even a loose fitting cotton mask can lower the spread of your breath droplets by a decent amount. It doesn't eliminate it, it just helps lower the spread. Mask usage has been directly correlated to lower rates of viral spread and much better outcomes for the community at large. It's a simple and easy way to show you care about those around you who may have a harder time getting through the virus.


Praire Wind, you really hit the nail on the head. Hope to see you around more.


I'm more and more certain they'll be open in June just based on how the country is heading. At this point it doesn't even matter how many people die. The flip has been switched and we've decided to just give in. I don't necessarily disagree entirely - the lockdown was supposed to be short and temporary. It's just a huge shame we waited too long for it to do much good and I wish people weren't so all-or-nothing about the issue.

I'm sure it will be like spring ride days just because they'll have limited staff.

[palallin]

On the contrary, there is good science behind the reluctance to wear masks.  They make it much more likely that the virus will get to a wearer's lungs rather than remain in the upper respiratory tract; it is the cases where the lungs are infected that the most serious illness occurs.

Masks are being promoted as a means of limiting the exposure of others, not the wearer.  Whether that exchange makes sense is a statistical game whose outcome cannot yet be known.  But there is good reason to not wear a mask if you have been exposed because it can very much make your own condition worse.  At that point, you need to rely on isolation to avoid infecting others, not masks.

[Preachin_Bill]

I fully expect SDC to be opened up by June 1st and will be disappointed if they are not.

By then, there will be a lot more tests and also antibody tests. We will learn that a large, large swath of the population has this/has had this and recovered. Many who have it will show limited side effects.

Factoring in the mass amount of new numbers, we will realize that:
A) The death rate for this is even lower than the low rate it currently stands at
And
B) A majority of people already had/have it, making it senseless to keep the entire country shut down.

This trend is already appearing, and if you follow unbiased sources you know this.

There has been a lot of goal-post moving regarding the goals of the shutdown.
Everyone at first said it was to "flatten the curve and keep hospital beds open". Now it has turned into "until there's no more deaths".  We did such a good job in most parts of the country keeping hospital beds open that many hospitals have had to LAY OFF and furlough employees! We went from worrying about beds to worrying about health care workers...that includes both my wifes and sisters hospitals they work at.
People are scared to go to clinics for preventative care. People are dying from heart attacks/strokes that could have been preventable. In a town nearby, a lady who used to go in for routine appointments had a heart attack, died en route to hospital, and her death was ruled covid as she was tested positive for it afterward. If you don't think covid deaths are over-reported, I have some ocean front property to sell you in Branson...

Look covid is horrible and it is scary. But the cure is at this point worse than the illness. We cannot continue being shut down. For people who like "Models" and "projections", realclearpolitics reported that the National bureau of economic research estimated that 77,000 deaths are possible due to layoffs from the shutdown. These are called "deaths of despair". Not to mention all the unintended consequences the shutdown leads to that are negative.

Open it up. It's time to live again. Bring your hand sanitizer and smile.

[shavethewhales]

https://kmox.radio.com/articles/radiocom/six-flags-update-season-passes-reservation-changes

Still waiting to hear an exact date, but we are rolling into mid May now... I am guessing SF announces plans some time this week and SFStL/FC will reopen by June. SDC will surely follow their lead. It kind of feels like people are waiting to see if there is a huge bounce in cases/deaths from the initial reopening. We are about at the time where such a spike would start occurring. It seems that the rates are going pretty steady with a slight downward trend (there's a weekly pattern with a big dip every weekend due to less testing being open, so don't get too excited yet about the mother's day drop in numbers).

We'll just have to keep waiting and watching for a little while longer, but I am cautiously optimistic as ever that things will get back on track for the second half of the year for those who aren't at high risk. Knock on wood.

[saladdays]

I think parks are being resistant to being the first to reopen. I expect that once one park does, then many others will follow.

[sdcfan88]

I'm also thinking they are still assessing on opening with limited capacity or implementing a social distancing plan along with the logistics of using masks or gloves. Strangely enough I work at XNA and they just now implemented a mandatory gloves and mask policy inside the airport terminal. I expected that a month ago.

And like Shave said, to see if cases explode with the opening of other facilities first.

[chittlins]

I'm also thinking they are still assessing on opening with limited capacity or implementing a social distancing plan along with the logistics of using masks or gloves. Strangely enough I work at XNA and they just now implemented a mandatory gloves and mask policy inside the airport terminal. I expected that a month ago.

And like Shave said, to see if cases explode with the opening of other facilities first.

And Delta is down to a single daily  flight in and out of XNA for June.

Boeing CEO hints that a US major will fail, not file Bankruptcy, but go away, forever. Wall Street pegged it as American today.

[KBCraig]

I'm also thinking they are still assessing on opening with limited capacity or implementing a social distancing plan along with the logistics of using masks or gloves. Strangely enough I work at XNA and they just now implemented a mandatory gloves and mask policy inside the airport terminal. I expected that a month ago.

I just had to make a quick overnight trip last week from MHT to DAL and back via SWA.

737-700 (143 seats) with 22 passengers on the first leg (to BWI), maybe 45 on the second leg. Lots of room to spread out, especially with SWA's pick-your-own-seat policy.

There may have been 1 or 2 people without masks on the entire trip.

The first return leg of my return flight was on a 737-800, which was my first time on the newer model. Those seats are much better, with more leg room, and a tray table that's actually functional.

As for gloves? That's a silly policy. Spreading by touch happens the same with or without gloves.