What Disney May Need to Do Once the Parks Reopen

Executive Chair Bob Iger says it's possible temperature checks may be done for virus
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 8, 2020 12:30 PM CDT
Soon to Come to Disney Parks: a Temp Check?
Guests gather on Main Street USA in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in the final minutes before the park closed on March 15, 2020, in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.   (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

If you've ever been to a Disney theme park, you know the rigmarole you have to go through to get past the security gates. Soon there may be an additional step: having your temperature taken. In a Tuesday interview with Barron's, Disney Executive Chair Bob Iger, who recently exited as the company's CEO, says that people won't come back to the currently closed parks until they feel sure they'll be safe. Absent a vaccine in the very near future, that could mean more restrictions before entering. "Just as we now do bag checks for everybody that goes into our parks, it could be that at some point we add a component of that that takes people's temperatures, as a for-instance," he told the magazine, via Reuters.

He added that his team is examining what China has done so far to mitigate the virus. "You can't get on a bus or a subway or a train or enter a high-rise building there—and I'm sure this will be the case when their schools reopen—without having your temperature taken," he said. Still, despite the "biggest business interruption" Disney has ever experienced, Iger is looking to the future. "We know when it ends that we will have things for the public to enjoy and to escape to, maybe in ways they will appreciate more than they ever have," he said, per USA Today. Variety, however, points out that Wells Fargo downgraded Disney’s stock on Tuesday, with analysts indicating it could take 24 months for park attendance to rebound to pre-coronavirus levels. (More Disney stories.)

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