It certainly has been a tumultous 16 hours or so. I was sort of waiting to post, but I would really like to weigh in a bit here on the plexiglass debate by looking at the options for protection that the Universal has available in descending order of effectiveness:
1. Social distancing to six feet or more (Almost 100% effective, especially when combined with other measures per
Social Distancing, Population Density, Temperature, and the Reproduction Number of SARS-CoV-2 and many other studies, although I've looked at a number of sources that say that social distancing is only completely effective with masks like
)
2. Requiring N95/surgical masks or equivalent (95-99% effective, depending on people's mask type per
Rationale for universal face masks in public against COVID‐19)
3. Air exchange/ventilation (Numerous studies show this is an effective way of mitigating COVID-19, possibly even more effective than social distancing like
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0040755 and
Mask Use and Ventilation Improvements to Reduce COVID-19 ...)
4.Vaccination (This technically does not prevent COVID-19 transmission, but it does prevent death, plus emerging studies show that having a vaccination does not reduce viral load per the numerous studies in
Covid-19: How effective are vaccines against the delta variant? but I'll put it here for the sake of completeness)
5. Plexiglass/Lexan barriers (These are effective against large droplets and splashes, but not aerosols per
https://dl.begellhouse.com/journals/6a7c7e10642258cc,2ce04b2326bbd18b,406f09c6138d7fc9.html)
Now let's look at what options are available options for HHN:
1. This is impossible to do in the houses due to proximity of people and scareactors (although I will say they did a good job of keeping parties apart when I went in 2020).
2. This is being done in probably the best way they can, but scareactors still don't (or can't) wear N95 masks and most people are likely wearing cloth masks, plus some people will inevitably ignore the rules.
3. Arguably this would be the most effective way to reduce risk for everyone. This is certainly feasible as they could retrofit the houses with fans and HEPA filters, but I doubt will be done due to space constraints. While I have no idea what the air exchange rate is inside the houses, I would suspect it's extremely low, and the requisite noise would hurt the aesthetics as much as plexiglass.
4. The state of Florida does not allow proof of vaccine for private businesses, so this is pretty much out. Even if they did, Delta is still transmissible even if you are vaccinated and will make you sick in the short term.
5. This is something they can easily do and are potentially doing (more on that below).
So, with the limited mitigation measures for houses, let's look at the commonly cited "plexiglass doesn't work" argument. All of the articles I have seen bury the lede, which is that the studies show plexiglass is not a substitute for any other measures, such as masks and social distances but does create additional short range protection in addition to other measures (
https://dl.begellhouse.com/journals/6a7c7e10642258cc,2ce04b2326bbd18b,406f09c6138d7fc9.html). In fact, the oft cited study for plexiglass being harmful (
Household COVID-19 risk and in-person schooling) does not even directly say that it is harmful. What it says is, "In contrast, closing cafeterias, playgrounds and use of desk shields are associated with lower risk reductions (or even risk increases); however this may reflect saturation effects as these are typically reported along with a high number of other measures." In short, when used with other measures, it's not completely useless, but merely less effective which is correlated by
Mask Use and Ventilation Improvements to Reduce COVID-19 .... Since we've already established those other measures can't or won't happen, the plexiglass makes sense. In fact, a number of studies and the CDC suggest that plexiglass is actually effective specifically when a single person such as a cashier (or scareactor) has numerous short interactions with multiple people, but only when paired with other measures as stated above. Many studies and lierature also criticize barriers as hygiene theater when they are not tall enough or big enough to protect against direct transmission, and my experience of the mazes in 2020 was that there most of the time the actors were more or less in plexiglass cages that would fully insulate them against others (especially Tooth Fairy). Thus, if the scareactors are vaccinated and tested, the risk of them contracting COVID-19 with barriers is probably lowered. My reading of this thread here is that people seem to be grappling with the fact that at this time there is currently no safe way to run the event and keep the aesthetics intact with the current set of options, regardless of method.
If I'm in the decision-making role at Universal Orlando, I'm really in a tough place. The event is not going to be cancelled, and the marketing dollars have been spent and the train is rolling forward. The absolutely best decision available would be to require vaccinations for guests, which can't be done, or increase ventilation, which has been shown to be highly effective, but I just doubt that's possible without extensive renovation of the houses. At the end of the day, I'm making a fiscally-driven best effort decision to protect the actors in the event, which will in turn protect the integrity of the event more so then having to replace tons of scareactors who quit because they don't feel safe or they get sick with COVID-19. If Universal is attempting a defense in depth strategy where the other measures may not be possible as demonstrated above, plastic barriers do make sense right now. While I understand why people are unhappy about the plexiglass (my experience was that it does ruin the immersion a bit), right now, it's probably the most effective thing they can do short of cancelling the event.