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While the state of Florida is still struggling to control the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus, some localities, including the area that contains Disney World, are improving.
If you’re following the latest wave of the Coronavirus outbreak, you’ve likely heard in the news that the state of Florida is getting hit hard at the moment.
It was unfortunate for Disney’s grand reopening that it occurred at the same time Florida was declared the world epicenter of the virus.
However, if you’re planning a trip to Disney World soon and still deciding about whether to take it, we have some good news about the Orlando area!
One of the best metrics to look at is the percentage of tests that are coming back positive. This metric is preferred by epidemiologists because it can not be explained away by an increase in testing.
The coronavirus tool on the Johns Hopkins University site states that too high a rate of positives may indicate that the locality is not casting a wide enough net with testing, only testing the sickest in the community.
Looking at the John’s Hopkins coronavirus tool, the state of Florida today has an 18.72% rate of positive tests.
The World Health Organization recommends that localities remain closed for non-essential businesses until the rate of positive tests goes down to 5%. According to the Johns Hopkins site, only 18 states currently meet this criterion for reopening their states.
But here’s the good news: Orange County Florida is seeing the rate drop down! Yesterday, July 19, 2020, the rate was all the way down to 7.4% positive after a 14 day high of 15.1% on July 8, 2020.
I (Rebecca) personally plan to keep my planned September trip if the rates in Orange County continue to plummet. Some of our writing team was there for opening week and had nothing but good things to say about the measures in place and the safety they felt in the parks!
Orange County Florida has mandated masks, as have several large chains including Publix, Target and Wal-Mart. Hopefully these measures will help Orange County, Florida and the rest of the United States get their numbers back down.
Today, Dr. Raul Pino who leads the Health Department for Orange County Florida, had a press conference in which he was asked about tracing any outbreaks back to Disney or Universal Orlando. In short, no there have not been any outbreaks traced to any of the parks at this time.
All of us at Kenny the Pirate have been following this information closely! We will continue to keep you updated on how things are looking in Florida and locally in Orange County as time goes on.
Do you have a trip planned? Had you considered looking at the data more locally given that a lot of Florida’s outbreak is happening in Miami? Let us know in the comments on Facebook and in our Facebook group!
-Rebecca W Davis
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Kelli A. Conte
Tuesday 21st of July 2020
I didn't even think about the sports team's numbers. These will definitely make the over all positive numbers appear better than they truly are.
Caty
Tuesday 21st of July 2020
I just read that yesterday Orange County made their way up to the county with the 2nd most cases in the state with almost an 11 percent positivity rate. This is as of July 20th so not sure how they are doing better
Elizabeth
Tuesday 21st of July 2020
Im sure its fine at Disney with masks and social distancing but who wants to wear masks and have no shows, fireworks, character meals, etc. Not magical! No amt of discount will be worth it to me!
Mary W
Monday 20th of July 2020
I am at WDW this week and I have to say I feel safer in the Parks than I do going to my local grocery store back home.
Christopher E Kelly
Monday 20th of July 2020
Most people who test have symptoms, get a few thousand people that dont have symptoms and the metric will fall. Y'all dont go to the Dr. Unless your sick, people that aren't will not waste their time time in line to get tested. All this shows me is the people that have or think they have symptoms only 10% are really I'll. This is a horrible statistical metric