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The Walt Disney Co. is set to make some major moves due to the coronavirus pandemic and it is bad news for employees at the company’s California and Florida theme parks, according to a report from CNBC.
Per the report, 28,000 employees will by laid off from California’s Disneyland and California Adventure, along with Florida’s Disney World.
“As you can imagine, a decision of this magnitude is not easy,” Disney’s chairman of Disney Parks, Experience and Product, Josh DÁmaro, said in a memo to employees. “For the last several months, our management team has worked tirelessly to avoid having to separate anyone from the company. We’ve cut expenses, suspended capital projects, furloughed our cast members while still paying benefits, and modified our operations to run as efficiently as possible, however, we simply cannot responsibly stay fully staffed while operating at such limited capacity.”
DÁmaro noted that California’s failure to lift restrictions that were set in place to limit the spread of COVID-19 was a contributing factor to losing revenue and that the parks being forced to shutter their doors early on during the pandemic had a lasting impact.
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The coronavirus mainly comes from animals and a majority of those who were infected early either worked at or frequently visited the Huanan seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, according to The Guardian. The virus is similar to Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers).
The Wuhan coronavirus is transmitted from person to person through “droplet transmission.” That means an infected person can pass the virus by sneezing or coughing on another person as well as by direct contact.
While a majority of the cases have been detected in the United States and China — with more than 7.14 million confirmed cases and 205,000 deaths in the United States — it has now reached many countries around the world. It has also been confirmed in Italy, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and many other eastern countries.
