Cinemark theaters just made home theaters a lot more appealing

By Chris Burns/June 26, 2020 11:01 am EST

This week the folks at Cinemark Theaters released a video to their Twitter account showing their sanitization process. The video is brief – just 18 seconds long. In the video we see a man by the name of "Marc" in a theater in West Planto, Texas. Marc's job is "sanitizing [Cinemark's] auditorium seats before each movie." The entire situation is strange, to be sure.

The video shows a sanitization process at a movie theater in Texas. It's not that this sort of disinfection process doesn't go on elsewhere. It's not that this sort of process would (or might not) make any difference for an individual who has asymptomatic COVID-19, visiting a movie theater. It's the visual impact of the scene that matters.

Thank you Marc at our West Plano, TX theatre for sanitizing our auditorium seats before each movie. We appreciate you! pic.twitter.com/D0WW0tZ2fC

— Cinemark Theatres (@Cinemark) June 25, 2020

Can you imagine Cinemark sharing a video like this at any other time in the past? It's as if the people responsible for the financial future of Cinemark decided that the video of a man spraying sanitizer on theater seats with a basic breathing mask over his face would entice theatergoers to buy tickets for their favorite film over the weekend.

Cinemark Holdings stock (CNK) fell 5.34% since opening today, June 26, 2020. UPDATE: CNK appeared at 11.67 USD (-0.70) (down 5.66%) at 11:50 AM EDT per Yahoo! Finance. Netflix (NFLX) was also down (-9.11) (-1.98%) as of 11:51AM EDT according to Yahoo! Finance.

Meanwhile, a recent study showed COVID-19 risks in public toilets thanks to lidless toilets and the potential for "clouds" of particals containing viruses. A different study from Texas A&M University showed that face masks are critical for individual COVID-19 protection out in the public. Earlier this month, the CDC warned that sniffing disinfectants and bleaching skin won't prevent COVID-19.

Take a peek at the timeline below for additional updates on the global pandemic and recent updates from the CDC here in the United States.