10 minutes ago, Assurancetourix said:

Which two countries have had very few hospital patients?

South Korea and Germany.
Why ?

Simply because they did a massive free screening and only isolate people who are Covid-19 positive

The day when the Thai generals understand that doing certain things for free will save them billions of US dollars has not yet come ...

Screening is just a fancier word for temperature testing, which Thailand literally does everywhere you go. Swab testing is something else. Very few countries, if any, does mass-testing as its physically impossible due to the lack of test machines, swab kits and qualified personell.

12 hours ago, dinsdale said:

And these numbers are based on a complete lack of testing hence are meaningless.

Yes. But not just suspected cases. Go into clusters and test widely. Outside of clusters test randomly or set up testing centres. Test, test and test. Problem with this is the true situation which the 'junta' is may be covering up will come to the surface.

 

Yong said all four measures must be observed strictly before the rainy season, when cases of respiratory disease would rise. “[Then] it will be more difficult to differentiate whether the symptoms of a patient are caused by Covid-19 or other respiratory diseases,” he said.

Interesting. "more difficult" infers it's already difficult. I'm not sure how this can be unless the tests they are using are giving false negatives and false positives or they simply don't have enough tests.. Whatever it is this comment leaves the way open to say that incorrect diagnoses may be happening.

 

There's a reason for the systematic testing. You can't just place motorbike-sized lab machines around every corner. There are very few of them available, they need to be in a sterilized and controlled environment, not enough swab kits available, one test takes around 45 minutes and it's a limit to how many test can be done per machine, and most importantly there are not enough qualified personell to handle swab tests and run the tests at the labs.

Another reason for not cluster testing is pretty obvious, hence why governments are trying to prevent people from cluster.

27 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

I am not advocating the avoidance of taking precautions. All I am saying is, that I tend to question the intentions of government and authority. That relates to any government, but especially this administration, that cannot be relied upon for fairness, decency, competence, talent, or honesty. Rarely is any governmental authority honorable and noble. A lockdown may have some wisdom at this moment. Maybe. Maybe not.

 

But there is no doubt we are seeing a massive over reaction over this. And there is no doubt, that the economic consequences will be infinitely greater than the death toll.

 

1. Millions will remain out of work for a long time to come.

2. Many will starve in nations like India, that do not have any real, or practical safety net. The $22 billion bailout is not enough there. How much of that money will actually reach those in greatest need? You have a nationwide lockdown, and hundreds of millions of people earning just $2 to $5 a day, in good times. 

3. I do not see Thai tourism EVER recovering to the extent it was before. Why would they return? Why would the Chinese return like before? They will likely choose other nearby countries. It was declining already. Now? What impact will that have on the airline industry? The airports?

4. Will people return to the movie theaters like before? Concerts? 

5. Will people be willing to travel as much as before? Where will they travel to?

6. Will people return to restaurants, and dine out like they did before?

There are an infinite number of questions out there, and they all remain unanswered.

 

This is not the zombie apocalypse, and there is no doubt that the panic, fear and precautions being taken are out of proportion to the risk, by a ridiculous degree.

Not sure what you're trying to say, but the only thing governments are trying to do is to spread the amount of infected at once over a greater period of time to prevent overloading hospitals, which again may save lives. Not only the lives of the corona infected, but also people in need of treatment for unrelated illnesses.

That being said, a pandemic at this scale is something new to anyone under a hundred years old, so what are people going to do when no one knows anything, when no one has the experience? Maybe it's an overreaction, but isn't it better to overreact then to react too late when we discover it is the new Spanish flu?

Either way, we'll learn a lot from this, gain much knowledge, become more proactive, have measures in place, but reacting to the pandemic this way I feel we're going to learn a lot more than just observing and predicting. Now we'll have a greater understanding of the effects of mass quarantine has to the spread of the virus, to the economy, people's reactions etc... That may come in handy when the next pandemic comes around, an ebola mutated virus outbreak, Covid-19 mutates for the worse, or who knows what... 

20 hours ago, webfact said:

PHRAE

Cockfight stadium, Thung Kwao (March 9-12)

Cockfight stadium, Pak Kang (March 9-12)

Cockfight stadium, Wiang Thong (March 9-12)

The police officer with Covid-19 in Kut Chap, Udon Thani, was on holiday to visit his mother. He lives and had attended the boxing fight in Bangkok (March 6-8). When he came to Udon he went all around the place to visit friends and events. He was hospitalized March 22, 14-16 days after he was infected. That's potentially 12 days of spreading the virus before he became isolated.

Now, 6 days later, 8 more cases has been confirmed in Udon the last two days. Unknown whether these new cases are related to this officer, as no one says anything, not even to us in the village where he visited his mother.

15 hours ago, Ian Nagle said:

Pre existing med conditions ??

Based on the statistics for Covid-19 fatalities it is highly likely.

A neighbor household in Kut Chap, Udon Thani (a few houses away) has now been confirmed having the Covid-19 virus. He is a police officer that lives in Bangkok but was visiting his mother. He was at the boxing match in Bangkok that infected so many.

There are currently a bunch of officials in the area tracing down people he have been in contact with, and people are spraying disinfected stuff around the area as well as cleaning door handles, gates etc with alcohol.

There has also been a funeral (party) the last couple of days in the area, so thats not good.

Personally, none of my family members have been around the area in recent days, other than in home or at work, but we will self-quarantine for the next 14 days.

4 minutes ago, Solidpoo said:

Its obvious this virus is airborne. But no govt or even the WHO wants to admit it. 

According to some scientists it has the ability to stay airborne for "a few hours".

https://www.mdlinx.com/internal-medicine/article/6487

Thats a lab study under artificial conditions, and its not widely agreed upon as it hasn't been studied enough to come to a certain conclusion, but it doesn't sound very likely that more than 30-40 people touched the exact same spot (with a few tiny drops) where the infected person was at the muay thai fight, even when being crowded. Its possible, but not very likely. What's more likely is that it is airborne, abd it doesn't need to be airborne for long to go pass dozens of people at a crowded event.

But it hasn't been definitely proven yet.

2002

2017

2020

Then comes the appeals... (and a bunch of nonsense in between). 

2032?

Wonder what will happen if my currency continues to drop, and eventually drop below the 40.000/month requirement. Just a few years ago I had 120-150k to spend a month, now I'm counting coins lol. I have to renew my marriage visa in 10 days. If it continues to drop 10-20% everyday for the next 10 days then I most certainly won't have 40k. Wonder how I'm going to get that stamp from the Embassy then. Some weird times we live in.

3 hours ago, ChaiyaTH said:

Well be happy you need to get it soon already, could be under it next year. My embassy didn't even have appointment slots until april 9th.

I just learned the Norway Embassy closed noon on Tuesday. No mention when it will open again, and when it normally is open it's only open 4 days a week for 3 hours per day.

Some strange times we live in. What am I even suppose to do, there are no flights going back to Norway even if I wanted to leave.

The Norwegian Kroner seems to be crashing.

1 NOK was worth 5.50 THB 5 years ago

1 NOK was worth 3.45 THB 1 week ago

1 NOK is now worth 2.88 THB

Worrying, and I have to go get a financial requirement approval stamp from the Embassy in a week for my yearly renewal of Marriage visa to prove I'm earning 40k+ a month, which is going to be a problem if it continues down much further.

My only hope is that Stage 3 in this virus crisis will close the Embassies and that there will be understanding for expired visas or that we can get temporary extensions at immigration office.

4 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

There's one in MoPH stats and has been there for weeks. Very likely connected to ECMO and being kept clinically alive for as long as possible. As for others, Thailand is notorious for putting the most convenient cause of death in the certificates. 

Right, and he's most likely not the only one in the world. Also, people having mild to moderate symptoms have been reported to have become critically ill later. 

Current deaths: 7,174

Critical condition: 6,163

Total recovered: 79,883

Active cases: 95,685

20 minutes ago, CraigInBangkok said:

your covid fatality rates are based off confirmed cases ...the "experts" say 10x to 20x more actually have the virus so you have to divide by those numbers to get somewhere close to the real mortality rate, right?

Sure, and that could also be correct, but the ones in critical conditions has a much higher rate of dying due to organ failure, which up until now most often has taken several weeks, so it is expected that the death rate increases in that regard, but you could of course be right that the amount undetected asymptomatic cases is pretty high, which would obviously pull down the actual fatality rate a lot. We'll have to see in a couple of weeks.

1 hour ago, keith101 said:

Australia just had 94 new Covid-19 cases in one day taking the total infections to 250 and Thailand is telling us there is only 82 in a country with such a huge population to me says they are just not testing enough or not releasing the real figures

Well, Norway with a population of barely 5 million has over 1100 cases officially and has said they stopped testing people 3 days ago that are not in critical condition, risk groups and important work groups, admitting the numbers of infected to be far higher than the official numbers.

2 hours ago, rkidlad said:

For how long? And then what?

 

The money needs to be used for a longer term. Not a quick handout. Give a man a fish and all that. 

I'm not in favor of these handouts, I was simply pointing out that 2000 baht is still a significant amount of money to a large population in Thailand (and something the governments continuously hand out to boost popularity among the poor).

Like you say, it's not going to change anything. In fact, it's expenses that could have gone somewhere else. Same goes to these huge bank loan schemes to low-income earners. It would be a lot better for the gov't to invest in long term solutions, such as a skilled workforce (education, tech, innovation programs...), creating investment opportunities, infrastructure etc., that will eventually benefit the poor as well.

On 3/6/2020 at 11:20 AM, robblok said:

Self quarantine will never work and imposed quarantine (for everyone from risk countries) is not done by any country besides China I think. 

Nonsensical comment. Self-quarantine is being done in most countries and all over Europe. Whether it is more effective or not depends on the individuals quarantined, whether they break their quarantines or not. It is in most countries based upon trust, at least up until the point where cities and villages gets shut down and isolated with military force (such as in China, Italy and Iran). If they stay quarantined then its obvious it is more effective than having unnecessarily amount of potentially infected people in and around hospitals. One of the biggest problems when the virus began spreading in Europe was doctors and nurses becoming infected. Just in Norway alone, over hundred hospital workers are in self-quarantine and several has been confirmed infected. It's currently only the severely ill, and children and elderly that are moderately to severely ill that are being isolated in hospitals for observation. Even if it turns out to be less effective, there's simply not enough capacity in hospitals to isolate that many.

5 hours ago, Nong Khai Man said:

Yeah, Same Same up in Nong Khai......It's been Great Up till now !!

In Udon Thani 7 and 8 years ago it was 2 and 4 Celsius at the lowest. While the cold season this year I think has had the most amount of chilly days that I can remember, but the coldest temps has been a couple of days of 10c and on average around 18c.

When will people learn not to visit hospitals and clinics on their own, but instead call the hospital and have them check you at home.

3 minutes ago, kensawadee said:

Chevvy giving up on Thailand should give us a hint about something wrong here....

Yes, GM and their crappy cars.

Never heard of Great Wall Motors. I did look them up and... naah, stay away.

The same could be said about GM as well. In the 20 years they've been in Thailand, have they ever had anything interesting on the Thai market (Chevrolet, Holden, Opel, SAAB...)?

All of these brands mentioned has had a number of great cars throughout the history (I even have a 84' Opel Kadett 1.8i in Udon, I love it), but never anything new and interesting that comes to mind while they've been in Thailand since 2000.

*Yes, Opel and SAAB is no longer under GM, but they were for a number of years while being manufactured at GM's Thailand plant.

2 hours ago, saengd said:

He would be making at least that much.

Really? Never knew that. I'll tell my entire family to drop their positions to become tuktuk drivers. My wife is a manager for MG and barely makes half of that. I guess she's in the wrong business then.