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20 hours ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

However if you actually read the CDC report, it does not say what the Gateway Pundit claims.

 

It says that only 6% of the people who died of Covid-19 had no other underlying condition. That's radically different from saying that the other 94% did not die of Covid-19.

 

The Gateway Pundit takes the CDC's actual findings and distorts them into something completely different.

It's not just underlying conditions: it's comorbidity. Underlying conditions are only one type of comorbidity. Most of the comorbidity in Covid deaths are from Pneumonia... which is DIRECTLY CAUSED by Covid 19.

People absolutely have no idea what these stats means.

Let's say someone has a car crash, then bleeds out to death. The death certificate will list something like: cardiac arrest, caused by external hemorrhage, caused by trauma from car crash. Makes sense, right?

People arguing that only 6% have died from Covid are basically arguing that this person shouldn't be listed as a victim of a car crash because that's the cardiac arrest that killed him.

It's just utterly stupid.

1 hour ago, law ling said:

Good, but positive results often don't show until 10-12 days after contact.

Where did you get this number?

Considering mean incubation time is 5 days and that PCR tests are sensitive enough to even detect before the onset of symptoms, 10 to 12 days before testing positive is actually a rare occurrence.

This is the reason why Taiwan is now offering a shorter 7-day quarantine option with a test after 5 days, because the very large majority of infected people will test positive within that timeframe.

https://qz.com/1869772/taiwan-shortens-coronavirus-quarantine-for-business-travellers/

1 hour ago, smedly said:

good idea - start testing when the chance of actually finding anyone infected are slim, they have either died of viral pneumonia or recovered

 

How about publishing Thailands deaths over the last 5 months - likely unrecorded or known let alone the diagnosis 

 

and for those that want to criticize my post - produce the figures first 

There you go.

Over the previous years there's been a variability of about 7,000 deaths in the first half of the year.

So unless the Covid death toll starts to be around 5,000 to 10,000 people you won't really see any significant differences. Such an amount of death would mean about 200K infected, with maybe 50-60K with noticeable symptoms. That's something that would be pretty difficult to swipe under the rug no?

Oh, and about hiding this within the pneumonia case, they also addressed the issue:

Now you can always say they're fudging the numbers. And there's no way to prove they don't.
But every day that passes where hospitals remain quiet, where no nurse or doctor leak something online is another nail in the coffin of these conspiracy theories.

3 hours ago, dinsdale said:

This should have been done a lot earlier. It will be interesting to see what happens numbers wise when (if) this starts. Countries which have broadened their testing are finding more asymptomatic/presymptomatic people. Look at the US which really started testing on a mass scale and the numbers went up. Now the curve is dipping. 

This hasn't been done earlier because it can only save you tests if you have a very small percentage of positive cases.

Imagine 2 groups of 100 people each: Group 1 has 1 infected (1%), Group 2 has 15 infected (15%)

If you pool 10 tests together, Group 1 will have 9 come back negative, 1 positive, then the 10 people of this group will be tested individually. It will have taken 20 tests to check everyone.

If you do the same with Group 2, chances are that most of these groups will have at least one infected in them. So you'll have to retest almost everyone individually and will have saved a marginal number of tests while wasting time with the first round.

26 minutes ago, keith101 said:

If these single figures are correct then why are they still banning inter provincial travel just doesn't make sense to me .

They're "correct" in the sense that it's the number of people they've found.

But I think they're being realistic in assuming that they are missing a significant percentage considering the large percentage of asymptomatic and mild cases.

In other words: they know that the current measure in places were effective at reducing the transmission rate, but they're not certain by how much and remain cautious.

25 minutes ago, bamboozled said:

Who gets tested? How is it determined who gets the test? People that have some sort of symptom and go to a hospital or doctor about it?

THe official criteria are:

1. Those who have travelled to any foreign country and show symptoms of respiratory distress, including coughing, runny nose, sore throat, difficulty in breathing and temperature over 37.3℃
2. Patients in medical facilities who show symptoms of respiratory distress and have temperature over 37.5 degrees Celsius, as well as fitting either one of the following criteria: Having a career that involves public contact, having been to crowded areas, used to be in contact with a Covid-19 patient. All patients in medical facilities who have pneumonia will also get a free Covid-19 test.
3. Medical staff who have contact history with a Covid-19 patient and show symptoms of respiratory distress as well as have temperature over 37.5C
4. Those involved in cluster group cases, be they at least three medical staff or five people who are from the same place, and show symptoms of respiratory infection but test negative for any type of flu.

23 minutes ago, Farmerkev said:

According to worldometer yesterday 71860 tests carried out, exactly the same as today, however, just over 20000 total tests 2 days ago. Please pull the right leg my left ones about 12 inches longer now

Wow, you're mixing up everything.

1. Worldometer isn't a primary source. It's a website aggregating data mostly coming from news. So the 71,860 was updated yesterday because that's what was announced by a Thai official. There was no announcement on this number today so it remains the same on worldometer. It doesn't mean there was 0 tests.
2. Nobody ever said they did 20,000 tests 2 days ago. What was said was "there's a capacity of 20,000 tests". This is probably the overall capacity of the country in terms of Lab machines. However they're still VERY far from that (same person mentioned current rate of about 2,000 daily tests) most probably because not only you need the machines, but you need the lab people to actually be trained to handle infectious diseases, the lab to be properly sealed and the whole logistics of bringing in and reporting tests to be managed.

Same boat.

Did the report on 25th, still pending. In the past it was usually approved within 24h.

I expect that they are a lot busier than usually all the while maybe having some staff work from home, with the approval of 90 days being at the bottom of their list.

I'm not sweating it. All that matters is that the reporting was done on time.

Intrusive- emergency contact details within and without Thailand, along with vehicle details (useful if you're lying dead in an accident) and (optional) email address?

Yep- pretty intrusive!

Those are the fields I had no problem filling.

My problem was with:

• social media usernames
• places often frequented
• bank account

And before you argue that these were optional: it is not written on the form that these are optional and the officer I met that day did not accept the form with these fields blank.

The main problem currently is the complete lack of consistency in the application of this form.

[...] once you register a child in UK you are in actual fact handing over ownership as you do with everything you register [...]

I'm not certain what you mean here. A child is a human being, nobody *owns* him. Not a country, and not the parents either. As parent you are merely in charge of their well being.

What kind of issue are you specifically trying to avoid by not declaring the child birth? So far, as other posters have mentioned, doing so brings only inconveniences and problems to the future of the child, with no actual benefit.

Just a general note of caution on dealing with forms and signing. Regardless of my total objection to the form, both in content and idea, if you put down false information and then sign it, as some posters are indicating they had to sign, you open yourself to possible troubles. This thing can get out of hand, and if you ever run into any future issue you might have trouble as they claim upon review that you signed, and lied, etc. Has anybody gotten in contact with anybody really in charge of immigration about this form? Of course with the military in charge, there really is only one official

None of the information I provided is false or erroneous.

I was asked to sign because I didn't want to provide the bank information.

They want the old one so that they can cut the corners off and stamp it cancelled before they give it back to you.

Slightly off-topic but the corner cutting of a foreign passport has always bothered me a bit. Aren't most paasport properties of the issuing governement and usually stipulate that it shouldn't be altered or mutilated?

Why wouldn't the 'cancelled' stamps on the visa be enough?

Was in Chamchuree today. Form was there. Also required a picture attached.

First desk (where they check if all your documents are ready) lied to our face saying this form is nothing new and has been needed for years (!!!) and ignored us when we remarked that it's mentionned nowhere on immigration website and that the form itself says it was created on 22 March.

Then the officer insisted I fill some places I left blank like social media, bank account and places frequented. Kept saying things vague enough to make it feel like the info was mandatory, then when pushing against it she suggested that just need to 'put something' like a mall you go often or some stupidity like this.

For the bank account (which is definitely on the form) I said I don't have it with me (which is true) and anyway don't want to give it so I wrote N/A. She said ok, but sign next to that line. Well, ok then.

Interesting- and you have to sign that draft?? Hmm..

May I ask you, what was the purpose for the visit there -extension?

Extension of business visa.

Saw someone filling bank info from a foreign bank and that was ok for them. Seems they just want to see some ink on the dotted lines.

Was in Chamchuree today. Form was there. Also required a picture attached.

First desk (where they check if all your documents are ready) lied to our face saying this form is nothing new and has been needed for years (!!!) and ignored us when we remarked that it's mentionned nowhere on immigration website and that the form itself says it was created on 22 March.

Then the officer insisted I fill some places I left blank like social media, bank account and places frequented. Kept saying things vague enough to make it feel like the info was mandatory, then when pushing against it she suggested that just need to 'put something' like a mall you go often or some stupidity like this.

For the bank account (which is definitely on the form) I said I don't have it with me (which is true) and anyway don't want to give it so I wrote N/A. She said ok, but sign next to that line. Well, ok then.

Went there with my kid. He had a blast.

Apparently it's been like that every year for the past decade, so I don't know why the airlines can't figure it out.

Someone also complained about that on a 'reader's letter' section of one of Thailand's english newspaper: got stopped and frisked at Asoke, even pee-tested.

About a week ago same thing happened to me and a friend of mine. Going to Terminal 21 from Petchburi by taxi, we stopped at Asoke intersection on the left side (near Soi Cowboy) to cross through the MRT underpass. 2 policemen on a moto stopped us. Looked in our bags, pockets, etc...

They were relatively polite, mostly because we can speak thai and showed them our Thai driving licenses (and explained we've been working here for almost a decade). Most of their questions in english sounded 'pre-formatted' specifically for tourists (where is your hotel, when did you arrive in Thailand, etc...).

They let us go after about 2-3 minutes when it was clear we were not the type of foreigners they were looking for.

I can imagine this would be a quite intimidating experience for tourists.

However, I did not have the impression they were trying to frame anyone. They seemed to be genuinely looking for drugs/illegal activity.

OPs mistake was to agree with the fare. Even though it is illegal for the taxi to even propose this, you lose your right to complain if you go with it.

However I strongly disagree that drivers doing this kind of thing are somehow OK because it's just 40 or 50 bahts overcharge. This kind of thinking is just enabling scam practices.

The Department of Land and Transportation is doing nothing about this kind of thing: have you ever tried reporting to the number provided? You always end up on an answering machine asking you to leave a message. Nothing ever goes out of it. I suspect only 1 person is in charge of this, just to make sure the voicemails are emptied from time to time.

And then the same department goes after services like Uber because they 'are not safe' and they 'overcharge'? What a joke.

Don't accept taxi scammy practices. It might be loose change for you but for many thais its a whole meal. If every farang starts accepting overcharge, that will become standard practice and locals will have to pay up too if they don't want to try 10 times before a taxi accepts to take them.

As usually, typical journalistic click-baiting.

Interesting to see that Coconuts Bangkok did a better job at reading the Thomson Reuteurs report than CNN and ThaiPBS.

This report is not a study, it is the result of a poll conducted in 16 cities, with a sample size of about 500 women in each.

The report doesn't answer the question whether or not these cities are dangerous, but rather whether women feel their city is dangerous.

This is a big difference. And if you know a bit about the psyche here, it is not all that surprising. Many Thais don't realize how safer Bangkok is compared to a wide majority of metropolis around the world. You constantly hear them warn you about rapist taxi drivers and other dangers. But the reality is that each of these incidents are highly publicized and way less frequent than in many other places.

Look at the questions that were asked: http://www.trust.org/spotlight/most-dangerous-transport-systems-for-women/?tab=methodology

To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "It is safe for women to travel alone on public transport when it's dark."

You can be sure Thai women will reply that this is not safe at all, because that's what they are taught. "Don't go out at night, only bad women go out unaccompanied at night..."

When you look at the results for Bangkok it's quite clear: The direct questions like 'have you been harassed verbally' and 'have you been harassed physically' got less affirmative answer than most of the cities and for those, Bangkok Ranking is pretty good. But to the questions 'do you feel safe at night' or 'do you feel safe in the city', many Thai women replied that they felt pretty unsafe.

I'm not saying Bangkok is a paradise for women. There are creeps, rapists and the police is pretty inefficient. But the media interpretation of this survey are, as usually, completely off.