Owen22 said: "My doctor, previous to Cuomo's message (which may be specious; I'm not sure a lot of the upstate public would easily go along with that) has said when the vaccine comes out he will not recommend his patients take it. He said the FDA and especially the CDC have been so politicized he doesn't trust either (which blows his mind he feels this way).
Also, why not stop continuingly raining on the parade of those hopefully thinking theatre will return by spring? You repost something alluding to this, or someone optimistically says something in that direction and it's HOW DARE YOU EVEN SORTA EVER THINK THEATRE WILL BE BACK BEFORE 2081???????
A lot of these scolds imply that the poster is stupid when they are only being merely, sweetly, hopeful. It hurts no one to believe this. Or most likely WANT to believe this. Cause it's probably not going to happen, but it's not hateful or childish or Trump Worshippy to think otherwise."
I have no idea if I'm one of the people you're calling a scold, but I feel it important to point out the contradiction between the two equally valid points you make - 1) that the situation has become so politicized that even your own doctor will recommend people don't take the vaccine and that he himself won't take it, and 2) that there's no harm in optimistically hoping that theater will return by spring.
Speaking only for myself, I've always been an optimist, and all my friends and family have always called me the most optimistic person they know. But I'm also a realist, and someone who likes to be prepared for disappointment (not the same as hoping, wishing, or anticipating it). If we look at your post, anyone will understand the problem, and it's a sad one. Since all producers are tacitly acknowledging that Broadway as we know it (indoors, cramped seating, no social distancing) simply does not have any chance of reopening until a) there is a vaccine, b) that vaccine is widely distributed, and c) a MAJORITY of the population takes it.... but at the same time, since many doctors are recommending that for safety reasons their patients don't take a vaccine immediately after it is introduced (and your physician is hardly alone), and it will take up to a year after one is introduced for it to be safely distributed across the country... if we do a simple A + B = C calculation, then C = zero chance that Broadway returns by spring.
That's not speculation, pessimism or some kind of schadenfreude, it's just a grudgingly sad resignation borne of the facts at hand and common sense. I can't wait for theater to come back, I can't wait to see all the shows, I can't wait to be at the Winter Garden next to all of you watching Hugh and Sutton. But it won't be in the first half of 2020.
People who think that it will are being, depending on one's view (and I see there's all kind of viewpoints in this thread) either sweet and hopeful, or more cynically, naive and delusional. But no one's accusing them of being "hateful", and no one's talking about the year "2081"; some of us are simply reconciling ourselves to the fact that, like it or not (and believe me I don't), with Anthony Fauci publicly saying that Americans will be able to go to the theater once a vaccine has existed for "almost a year", it's a foregone conclusion that since there's no vaccine yet and since spring is less than 8 months away, it's just not going to happen by spring. And saying so doesn't make me or anyone else a scold, a pessimist, or even any kind of naysayer: it just means we're as frustrated as everyone else, but that we're watching the news, paying attention, and making peace with what's unfortunate but inevitable. Onward and upward, and needless to say, hopefully sooner rather than later!
