Walt Disney World is open for business, but there are a lot of new rules in place that guests must now follow. Chief among them is that face coverings are required while inside the park, and country music star Jason Aldean just discovered how seriously many people, including other theme parks, take those rules.
Over the weekend, Jason Aldean and his family visited Walt Disney World, and he and his family took a family photo, as millions of others have done before. However, in the photo, nobody is wearing a mask. This resulted in a lot of people responding to the picture by calling out Aldean and his maskless family, ultimately resulting in the singer deleting the tweet.
Prior to deleting the picture, Jason Aldean made it clear in replies that he and his family did have masks and were wearing them throughout the park as they were supposed to do. They simply removed them for the picture, then replaced them when it was done. You can even see the woman in the front of the group holding her mask in her left hand.
However, that fact did not stop the criticism of the maskless photo. Even Universal Orlando Resort threw some shade Jason Aldean’s way, with a subtweet that makes reference to one of the country music star’s popular songs.
On the one hand, Jason Aldean and his family did have masks, and only removed them briefly. At the same time, the optics of the situation aren’t great. While a family photo of everybody masked might not look good on the living room wall, it would send the right message to social media. And that’s certainly why we’re seeing this critical response.
As long as the family was staying stationary for their picture and other guests were able to pass them by them at a safe distance, the picture itself isn't a significant problem on its own. At the same time, this isn’t the sort of thing you want everybody doing, because then it could be a problem.
While there is anecdotal evidence that health and safety measures instituted at Walt Disney World have not been perfectly enforced, the good news is that thus far there has been no serious outbreak traced to the resort. It seems that the protocols in place from masks to limited attendance have thus far been good enough to keep the virus out of the theme parks.
Unfortunately, Walt Disney’s World’s success has not been good enough for the state of California to make the decision to allow Disneyland Resort to reopen. Disneyland recently revealed it will reopening part of Disney California Adventure next month, not as a theme park, but as an “extension” of the Downtown Disney shopping and dining district. The actual theme parks may still be several more months away from reopening.
