2021 now looking bleak for potential U.S. theater reopening — Page 2

@OlBlueEyes Everything you say is accurate. I just want to add one thing about the early death rate, which is that it was hugely affected by nursing home deaths, something that will not happen again. When you add that to the advancements in medical knowledge (beyond the vaccine but including other treatments which are expanding exponentially, especially at the critical care level as well as far more acute diagnostic savvy), it appears we will have less severe (but still sad and horrific) statistics from the second wave.

@golbinau I have not seen anything that reliably answers that question but what I have seen suggests it will not be broad enough by then to translate into herd immunity, and that's even with aggressive efforts by a new administration (that will undoubtedly have this in the rear view mirror sooner than the current one would). Also worth mentioning, because it is hard to fully appreciate from the outside, is that New York is really a bubble within the US, with much lower current statistics, an aggressive protocol for those arriving from other parts of the country, and its own vaccine timetable (within the context of products becoming available generally of course). This latter could mean that the NY region will be prepared to have theatre again by July, but not at the Broadway level where tourists are (with few exceptions) essential.

just to put this in context a little: there are 18 million healthcare workers, and there are about 50 million seniors. When you add to that other people who are at high risk and move to the front of the line, plus Hugh, Sutton, and possibly Jeremy, a lot of the potential herd will be waiting. (And let's not even get started on the refusers.) 

Mr Roxy said: "Waiting for the next Wildhorn show or at.least a revival.of Wonderland Wink Wink"

Well... the Marquis was free before the shutdown. The Britney Spears musical did not officially announce a B'way transfer/theatre/dates to my knowledge. This could work???

Ha ha ha, just kidding. We all know Blunderland was a disaster in every way, not unlike You-Know-Who's other shows. Are you sure he isn't ghostwriting Lloyd Webber's Cinderella?

Just kidding. Our theatergoing days were over long before Co Vid. See no way it can operate with current restraints. Add to that getting something eat before will.be.an issue with the restaurant industry descimated by Mr Cuomo.People will sit it out for awhile and tourists will be slow in returning .

All in all picture is bleak. Hope for all who will still be able to go it does return soon in some form . Have enough cast albums, videos legal and boots etc and memories to.last a lifetime , By the way Cuomo has already said he will.not let it be distributed until his team verified it safe  His hatred of Trump will cost more lives busy as with the nursing home fiasco he proves he is ok with collateral damage  Wants Biden to get credit for ending it  So glad I am done with politics  . Sorry to rain on anyones parade .

Updated On: 11/10/20 at 04:09 PM

"Add to that getting something eat before will.be.an issue with the restaurant industry descimated by Mr Cuomo."

Let's try to sort this out rationally. Since you have not been in the city during this pandemic, you perhaps do not know that we have had a pretty cool restaurant scene over the summer and it will continue to have vitality until it is too cold or (hopefully not but it is not promising) a second wave lockdown is necessary. Moreover, to the extent the restaurant industry has been harmed (it has, though not descimated or even decimated), the cause was not Cuomo but Covid. What Cuomo has done is made NY one of the few sane places in the country, one of the few places where the risk of catching the virus -- even now -- is very low. Especially in Manhattan. Data is your friend. Science is your friend. Psychopaths are not.  Make that your mantra; it will heal you.

If Faucci is now saying the general public should be able to get the vaccine in April, a summer start date doesn’t seem as far fetched as it used to.

Updated On: 11/10/20 at 09:41 PM

@Jordan If that timetable holds up, I think we could well see SOME theatre in NYC during the late summer/early fall, but (as I have said before) Broadway presents its own challenge because of the tourist dependency. There is not going to be national herd immunity by then, and New York is still going to be cautious in protecting its borders. Right now, Manhattan has numbers that are a small fraction of the national numbers and I suspect we will remain well ahead of the curve on vaccination immunity as well. If I had to guess, I would say that The Music Man is looking a lot more like the kick start of the new normal for Broadway. 

OlBlueEyes said: "I don't think that this criticism holds up given that almost everyone who has tangled with the virus has lost. The 50-80 percent seems unrealistically high."

I think one of the benefits of hindsight is that we now recognize that experts are just giving their best guesses, and in the case of covid 19 the virus outwitted everyone. (You will recall that the WHO and others advised masks were needed only for the sick, a deadly notion that has of course been fully repudiated.) The epidemiologists's hospitalization models for NY, you may recall, were in the range 3-7 times higher than reality. Those guesses had consequences because much time and effort and money was expended trying to head off the catastrophe of those models. Also, those death stats in the early days of the pandemic, horrific as they were, were largely driven by nursing homes, so "closing schools, stores and restaurants" would not have had a noticeable effect. I respect Dr. Frieden, but what he thought in early April was naive, and I'm sure he'd be the first to tell you that. 

Updated On: 11/11/20 at 09:52 AM

I loved that book. I hadn't thought of it in years but I'm sure I still have it around here somewhere. As you know, one of her theses is a parallel between that century and the 20th (especially the part in which she was most interested). She has several other books focused mostly on the period before WWI, all very interesting, though Guns is obviously the masterpiece.

Tourism May Not Fully Recover in NYC Until 2025 Due to Coronavirus Pandemic

https://nyti.ms/32MIxT6

Updated On: 11/16/20 at 05:57 PM

how many more times can they keep postponing certain shows? I have Music Man for June of 2022 which seems possible right now. 

Too many unknowns for anyone to say whether or not Governor Cuomo will allow theaters to reopen for Fall 2021.  Also, even if they do open, will there be enough people who feel comfortable coming back to make it profitable to reopen? Are theaters getting ahead of themselves in announcing their Fall 2021 seasons now?  Perhaps they should wait until June/July when we know how things are progressing.

"Failures and delays could stretch out the timeline for slowing the virus’s spread to 2023 or beyond".  "Rollout of any shots will take time, so masks, distancing and testing and contact tracing will still be vital." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-09/pfizer-vaccine-results-leave-questions-about-safety-longevity

April is when they think they will start to give the vaccine to the general public. It will take months for millions and millions of people to be vaccinated. 

Agreed.