The mega-resort will welcome back visitors on Saturday even as coronavirus cases in Florida remain high.

Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., will reopen on Saturday, and Disney has been posting marketing videos online to highlight the safety procedures it has designed to protect visitors and employees?

Others were incredulous, with people using words like “irresponsible” and “disappointing.” Disney World is reopening.

But in doing so Disney is stepping into a politicized debate surrounding the virus and efforts to keep people safe, where even the wearing of masks has become a point of bitter contention.

Complicating matters, Disney is allowing people to return to a modified Disney World while other parts of its empire remain closed.

Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, recently slowed down the reopening of theme parks in California, including Disneyland, which had been scheduled to come back on July 17.

Those numbers are down from last week but still among the highest in the country, leading some to question whether Disney is being responsible in opening up Disney World.

“The world is changing around us, but we strongly believe that we can open safely and responsibly,” Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s theme park chairman, said in an interview.

D’Amaro said Disney’s four theme parks in Asia had reopened “without incident.” He declined to say how many people would be allowed into Disney’s Florida parks, though he said visitors should expect a “sparse” atmosphere, rather than the usual crowds.

Unions representing roughly 48,000 Disney World employees have signed agreements with Disney to return to work under rigid safety protocols.

But none of those places has the prominence of Disney World, which consists of six separately ticketed parks with combined annual attendance of 93 million.

Disney World’s other major parks, Epcot and Hollywood Studios, are set to reopen next Wednesday.

The National Basketball Association will restart its season on July 30 at a Disney World sports facility.

For visitors, the Disney World experience will be drastically different.

Disney, known for its militaristic style of theme park management, will require face coverings for all employees and visitors over the age of 2.

Some Disney World employees have said they do not feel safe returning to work under the conditions that Disney has laid out.

Actors’ Equity, which represents about 750 Disney World performers, has been sparring with the company over coronavirus testing.

Company-orchestrated testing is not part of Disney’s back-to-work plan for any of its park employees.

(Disney World employs roughly 75,000 people.).

“It is deeply disturbing that while coronavirus cases in Florida surge, Disney is refusing to provide regular testing to one of the few groups of workers in the park who by the very nature of their jobs cannot use personal protective equipment,” Mary McColl, executive director of the Actors’ Equity Association, said in a statement last week.

The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests.

It gives 12 weeks of paid leave to people caring for children whose schools are closed or whose child care provider is unavailable because of the coronavirus.

A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms.

Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.

Disney and other theme park operators have Florida’s governor in their corner.

Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, favors postponing Disney World’s reopening, however.

Eskamani noted that Disney employees had anonymously created an online petition asking the company to keep its parks closed until infections subsided.

Disney — with its theme parks closed, Marvel movies postponed and ESPN cable channel without live sports to televise — has seen its business more directly affected by the pandemic than much of corporate America.