Since that day when, as a little boy, I watched on TV as the topping out of this very structure seen above took place, Walt Disney World has been open to the public, 365 days a year, closing only four times.
Three of those were for hurricanes that were coming directly over the Orlando area...Disney doesn't close if the projected path is merely elsewhere in Florida. And once the storm threat or the storm winds were over, the park sprang quickly back to life...no more than a couple or three days. Even if the surrounding area, as in 2004, was experiencing major power interruptions, Disney, with their own power plants and infrastructure, was good to go. They also shut down early the afternoon of September 11th just in case it was on some terrorist hit list...and despite the dramatically reduced park attendance over the subsequent months, the parks stayed open. (Or as I called it "The Wonderful Times" since us locals had the parks practically to ourselves)
But tomorrow night, Disney (and all the other major attractions in Central Florida), will shut its gates to the public out of concern over this coronavirus pandemic. And Florida is not alone, Disney parks the world over will be closed as well as numerous other facilities, events and gatherings. Whole countries are shutting down! The US is in an official state of emergency.
WTF!?
My IRA has tanked. I lost about $10,000 in two weeks, cruises have been cancelled (and I almost booked another one last week that would have sailed on the 15th) and travel is getting restricted. Will mandatory quarantines be next? This is shit you'd expect to see in a disaster movie, not in real life.
In digging deeper, I found that the 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic killed 150,000 - 575,000 people but I don't remember anything out of the ordinary done by the government back then. I vaguely remember hearing about the flu epidemic on the news and cautioning people to take care to wash your hands and the like, much as any winter when the run-of-the-mill flu goes around, but disruptions even a fraction of what we're seeing now, nope.
And speaking of that annual "run-of-the-mill" flu. That in and of itself has been killing more and more people each year accounting for some 50 to 80 thousand deaths per year in the US in recent times. Why am I only aware of this now, after several Google searches?
And remember, the above past incidents are diseases we have vaccines for. There is no vaccine for the coronavirus were dealing with now.
I feel bad. I think it will get a lot worse. I think we're in for more epic shit.
As for me, well, my decidedly hermit lifestyle will only be a blessing in disguise, I guess. I'll be holed up here by myself having very minimal contact with anything as I had anticipated anyway actually. I can order food and supplies from Amazon Prime, spray those boxes with Lysol and only see digital images of people. I won't even look out my heavily draped-up windows to see my neighbors.
And eventually, once all the hub-bub has cooled down and the world becomes normal again, I may rejoin my fellow human beings. Maybe I'll even renew my Disney pass and return to the Land of Fun and Fantasy once again. After all, as the famous tune reminds us:
"It's a small world after all..."