DualSportBiker

I registered with ExpatVac the day it was spun up. No response from them, but BCCT kicked the tires for me just this Monday and I got my first AZ jab this afternoon at SCG Bang Sue. There were thousands there, all under various different schemes; ExpatVac/BCCT, BMA, and others whose names I did not catch while waiting for the overworked security guard to tell me where to go.

The entire process, front door to getting a cab home, took me 75 minutes. I very much doubt that the Thais waiting in the BMA queue got processed that fast. Were the performance slower today, I'd still be grateful for it taking place. It could be argued I should not have had to wait so long to be registered - all registrations accepted and sorted by age rather than there being a Thai queue and a non-Thai queue. However, at the end of the day, the machine is oiled and working and the volume of people through it seems to be rising. The staff I talked to said they were processing more people per day each day.

Ironically I received a mail from MedPark this morning offering me Pfizer yesterday or today. Not sure how that would work, but as I live close to Bang Sue I took the AZ and will wait until Nov 19 to get my second jab. I am not considering a self-diagnosed mix-n-match at this time, although preliminary tests suggest the two combine well. (https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/features/covid-19-vaccine-mixing-astrazeneca-pfizer/) It is unclear about getting a certificate here if one mixes vaccines.

13 hours ago, riclag said:

Did you register for a vacc, on the site in this thread , expatvac ?

I did. The site crashed initially so I waited 20 mins, tried again, struggled with the date field and eventually got a success.

 I think it goes deeper than that. Too many older Thais have neither any clue about, nor interest in technology. 60% of Thai IT graduates do not work in IT. 60% of IT workers here did not graduate in IT. As only young people understand programming, and programming is a career path with a low glass-ceiling so the smart programmers realise that and change careers. Most Thai organisations programming can and should only be done by fresh graduates for the lowest price possible. Have we ever seen a tender here pitched and won on quality over price?

I have worked in IT since 1988 in London, here, Hong Kong and Singapore where I ran IT for a USD100,000,000 regional logistics Co., I have seem how each country in Asia approaches IT. Thailand is so far behind the rest it is scary. In 1993 I can remember one of Thailand's bank's IT Exec VP telling us they would 'jump over' the client-server revolution and get away from COBOL and AS/400s. I can remember them calling us in a panic when they used waterfall development processes for SmallTalk projects (few might understand that but it is the programming equivalent to using a Ferrari to drive off-road or carry durian.) I wonder how much blame can be assigned to Thailand's slavish use of AS/400 and all the wrong-headedness it brought with it.

The few companies here that know how to buy technology services are keeping the even fewer companies that can deliver very busy. The rest of both camps are stuck with each other until death.

11 minutes ago, macnmotion said:

Actually the biggest piece missing is usually the strategy, including security, before a finger is lifted for design or programming. But since managers here have little incentive to spend their budgets on such an invisible step, it usually doesn't happen.

5 hours ago, garygooner said:

Thought the number would be higher than around 29k. Wonder how many have already paid for Moderna up front and are waiting? 

Me for one. Q# 909K and change for Moderna. Signed up for this (painlessly) hoping to accelerate the process. If a 60+ year-old with 2 health conditions is told April 22, it would seem reasonable to conclude Moderna will get me first as I am both under 60 and in great shape.

7 minutes ago, 2long said:

WOW!! ????????

I normally enjoy the company and opinions of fellow bikers, but the aggression and accusations* in your post are quite alarming! I will/would never click on a link surrounded by such words, such is the fear of a spam link or worse.

How very dare you call me a Somchai!

Act like a duck, get called a duck. And whatever you do, don't go reading up on how polls are actually done so you can keep to your false understandings... With that kind of bravery, I bet your stand leans your bike more than you do ????

1 hour ago, pauleddy said:

A sample size of 1000 (without ages, location, wealth etc)taken from 60 million (I’ve discounted 3 m farang) is as useless as a chocolate teapot. Does nobody study stats here?

 

 

eddy

Do you?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/howcan-a-poll-of-only-100/

1 hour ago, mikosan said:

1069 respondents to the poll.  Not worth the paper it's printed on.  The government should do a REAL poll.  No, they can't, because then they'd have to include REAL people and the likelihood is that it would be 99% critical.  Muppets.

What is a "real poll"? Pray tell us Mr. Statistician? Explain your sample size and its distribution, your margins of error and quality control methods?

We'll wait...

1 hour ago, Bangkok Barry said:

Thank you for your cultured response. I stand by what I wrote, that asking so few is pointless, no matter how they are sampled.

What you wrote is a personal pinnacle of fact-free opinion. Standing by it means you are in free-fall...

Before you state that 1,051 people can't represent 69 million, try reading up on statistically sampling. Until you have an opinion based on knowing something, your opinion is not worth a tin of duck-poop.

1 hour ago, Bangkok Barry said:

 

Probably are. Who is going to check them, and (allegedly) asking 1,051 people and applying their answers to 69 million people is pointless anyway. How are these people picked? Age, profession, location? Was Somchai in Nakhon Nowhere asked?

I say allegedly, because years ago I worked for a month for a company that offered property ownership time shares. I had to call people who had supposedly shown interest when stopped in the street, but in reality many of the phone numbers had simply been taken from the phone directory. Some of the people who had 'shown interest' weren't even alive. No wonder my boss was concerned when he discovered that my regular job was as a journalist.

3 hours ago, fleccer said:

How can you predict 1000 cases a day? Please do explain it to us Mr expert .Not only that, but the third wave will be even worse than the first two, we are at the apotheosis of catastrophism ,no discounts

You mean you don't know? Good of you to admit that.

Health departments have models for social mobility. They can get data from a number of sources including census, public transport data, highway planning projects where traffic is counted and people quizzed on their travels. Depending on the granularity of the data they can breakdown average person-movements by the day. From that they use infection rates and rates of change in infection rates to make predictions. Not surprising to me, it is actually way more complex than that, but for you, Mr. Armchair Expert, simple might be best. 

A simpler explanation might be that as an infectious disease specialist, it's his job to find the data to make predictions.

On 3/7/2021 at 12:21 AM, Fex Bluse said:

I can see from the comments that lots of newbies don't know much about Thailand... 

 

Lecturing at the well known uni and driving a Benz should make anyone who knows Thailand immediately suspect the driver is from a wealthy family. 

 

You don't get these jobs without being connected. 

Your use of knowledge and understanding are problematic. Those who jump to self-supporting assumptions based on the prejudice of not being Thai will be offended by you basing your comments on facts!!

People protested and the police backed down. Might have been late 90s, but its all a blur...

1 hour ago, jackdd said:

 

Not having her windscreen blacked out might have helped her in seeing him.

To do this is obviously quite stupid, but does Thailand even have a law against it?

15 hours ago, sirineou said:

What does  $389,835 Mean ?

Is that to retire for the rest of your life?  at what age?  and  how many years would that last you. ?

 

You could try reading the report for yourself. It is not long, in English, and you'll find few willing to read it to you...

On 2/12/2021 at 9:56 PM, MikeyIdea said:

There were 37,000 dead in 1996 i think it was, road deaths are down a lot, not up compared to that period. There wasn't a week, often no more than a couple of days between when i saw the painted profile of a dead body, a totally smashed up bike or occasionally, a dead body in the nineties. They were good in the sense that they really made me concentrate and think about my own safety. Now-a-days you hardly see any. Thailand has more than halved the road fatalities since the mid 90s. 

 

I find Thailand very much safer now-a-days

Point taken. Wikipedia states 13,836 deaths in 1997 and Thai RSC report shows 7,465 for 2020. Songkran accidents and deaths have been up for several years consecutively despite the annual campaigns.

My broker says hold for 30+, perhaps 35 in a couple of months. I applied for 6,000 and got 4,400 shares - seems everyone got the same. 

25 minutes ago, Artisi said:

I don't ride a bike, but when driving I always try to acknowledge any courtesy offered / given. 

Good on yer mate.

I drive an immediately recognisable truck; I can't flip people off or drive like a muppet anywhere near where I live. Instead I do the English-village thing and wave at everyone who lets me go or simple doesn't drive like a muppet. There are a few neighbours who have picked up the habit!