DoctorB

Why? Thailand was only put on the UK red list at the end of August; that's about 6 weeks ago. Anyone wanting to go to the UK could have gone anytime over the Summer, albeit with the risk of home quarantine if testing positive.

When Thailand was put on the red list the FCO advice against all but essential travel (except for Pattani, Yala etc for terrorist reasons) was not added until the actual red list came into force. I think the same will apply again; ie the FCO will advise against travel based on the current advice until 4.00 am 11 October, when the advice will then cease to be current. The FCO site will then be amended. Presumably the FCO gets its advice from whichever committee decides the rules for each country and the Uk government for all its faults generally does not allow advice from different official sources to be in conflict.

In 1973 I attended a 3 week management seminar to examine the prospects for our industry (telecommunications) up to the millennium. A very long and detailed report resulted based on the very best analysis and when the year 2000 arrived it was 90% garbage. In general all such long term forecasting, which is largely based on extrapolating from existing trends, is worthless. There are always totally unforeseen developments. In 1973 we didn't foresee the Internet, the home computer, the mobile phone, the privatisation of state industries and all the related consequences. If this university had been asked to forecast the future of tourism in 2018 would they have foreseen Covid? Whatever the 'Neo Tourism' era looks like I doubt it will have any resemblance to what is prophesied here. The expression " gilding wild guesses with refined analysis" come to mind.

That's excellent news. Now build on it by making more places accessible with the minimum amount of bureaucratic fuss.

According to the Daily Mail it is the Beta variant that is putting the pussy among the pigeons regarding Thailand. Given the number of variants identified so far and the ever present risk of new ones these shinanigans could potentially go on for months yet.

This is correct. The Red List is expected to be revised today (7 Oct) or very shortly.

A number of points here. The so called 3rd wave in Thailand may have been been traced back to a night life venue but is unlikely to have originated there. It would ultimately have manifested itself somewhere even if all bars and restaurants remained firmly closed; just as outbreaks have appeared in Australia and New Zealand under strict lockdown conditions. The Texas Medical Association document is not an empirical study but a set of ratings based on certain assumptions, thus:- "The doctors rated the activities assuming that participants are wearing a mask when practical, staying at least 6 feet away from people who are not immediate family members, and washing their hands frequently." OK, the raters were doctors and deserve respect for their opinions but the purpose of the document is to express a point of view. Bars and restaurants in Britain have been open for months now, almost without restrictions, and so far not one localised outbreak has been reported as a consequence. And before you mention the high level of vaccination, it has said been repeatedly, here and elsewhere, that vaccination does not prevent infection or transmission but reduces the risk of serious illness. Finally, to dismiss as an idiot anyone who disagrees with you is both discourteous and disrespectful. I don't agree with your assumptions but equally I don't presume to judge your intelligence. There is no rigidly acceptable truth regarding Covid. See for instance the differences within the medical profession between the proponents of strict lockdown vs the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration; or those proposing the administration of hydrochloroquine vs those who say it is ineffective. And among the general public the gulf between vaxers and non-vaxers is profound.

It has not been proven at all. At best it is an assertion that appears logical to the layman; one of those examples of anecdotal "common sense" so beloved of authoritarians. But can you quote one scientific study to back it up?Just because it appears to make sense does not mean it is necessarily valid. A journey on the sky train or a bus is probably far more dangerous than a beer or two with a meal, but no one pontificates about that.

And what scientific evidence is there that the Chinese vaccines don't actually work on Delta or any other variant, as opposed to having slightly less effectiveness than certain other vaccines?

So following the implications of this highly speculative doom scenario what is the plan? Do you just allow the economic devastation to continue? It's clear from the rest of the world that lockdowns and social isolation are not going to make covid disappear anytime soon. So there has to be a course of action to restart economic activity as best as one can while trying to minimise deaths.

55,000 bahts worth of drugs?? That would get you about 4 ounces of weed in London. He's hardly El Chapo or Pablo Escobar is he? Hardly worth a press conference let alone the attention of the Immigration Head Honcho.

Usually there is no difficulty at all in getting travel insurance with full health cover for Thailand from a UK company, but not while it is on the red list or travelling contrary to Foreign Office advice, as at present. The Embassy site makes it clear you can buy UK or Irish cover and offers the link to the Thai companies as an alternative. However what about this little wrinkle, from the Certificate of Entry (COE) Registration Guideline for Non-Thai Nationals, link https://coethailand.mfa.go.th/images/ENCOERegistrationGuideFinal04112020.pdf "After COE issuance, please ensure that you have the following documents to present at the check-in counter and to the Department of Disease Control’s Representatives upon arrival into Thailand.................... (4) (For the Department of Disease Control upon arrival into Thailand only) Medical insurance or letter from employer guaranteeing that the insurance company or employer will cover a minimum of 100,000 USD of medical costs incurred by the applicant in Thailand, including medical costs in the event that applicant contracts COVID-19 (The insurance must cover the total duration of stay in Thailand) DOCUMENT NEEDS TO BE QUOTED IN US DOLLARS. OTHER CURRENCIES WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF DISEASE CONTROL." Apart from the fact there is a numbering error in the full text (omitted here) the implication would appear to be that unless you can persuade your insurer to add a codicil to the insurance certificate, translating the benefits from Pounds to Dollars you will be turned back at Bkk. Does anyone have any experience as to whether this is enforced? In practice it's probably just easier, and cheaper, to buy the Thai insurance.

Actually you've got this slightly skewed. 2.00 am was the usual closing time, certainly for places like Cowboy and Nana, prior to Taksin. After he took power a committee sat (I'm not sure what its official remit was) and recommended a blanket 10.00pm closing time for night entertainment venues (though this never came close to being legislated and enforced), and Purachai, the Interior Minister, was reported in the press as saying that he did not see why anyone would wish to be out and about after 11.00 pm. There was a heavy crack down on venues opening after 2.00 am, and one of the first and saddest of the casualties was the renowned, police owned, Thermae on Sukhumvit, famous from Vietnam war days, which used to close at 6.00 am. (This subsequently morphed into the sad Japanese haunted venue that exists now.) A number of senior police officers were transferred to inactive posts for not closing places promptly and as you say, the pee-test and passport check squads were sent out. New regulations were adopted and even Pattaya had 1.00 am closing enforced for about 2 weeks. In the end Purachai proved too puritanical and fell from grace. His role as morality enforcer was taken over by a deputy Interior Minister whose name I cannot now recall, but who before finally resigning complained that he was being ridiculed by his government colleagues as "Mr Urine" (presumablly a bizarre translation of something like "Khun Pee-Pee"). This whole farce rolled on for about two years until the law was consolidated into what it is now (ie pre-covid). Then by the usual Thai process of lax enforcement things more or less drifted back to what they were; ie places closed if the cops turn up. Before anyone picks me up on details, as with anything to do with Thailand I realise there were endless differences, variations and exceptions but that's the broad picture as I recall it.

These are fascinating retrospective justifications. The second one about the monks I have never heard before and is truly original. But I followed the whole saga at the time, along with Purachai's efforts to get the night entertainment industry closed well before midnight, and certainly recall the school argument being used. After all, you can't have a decent moral panic without dragging kids into it.

So why was the 2 to 5 ban brought in? Just plain virtue signalling and a desire to interfere in other peoples' lives??

Are you sure about that? I recall a whole associated hoo-haa about alcohol not being sold at all within 100 meters of schools etc., which groaned on for several months before being quietly forgotten. Probably it was more about stopping teenagers buying alcohol for themselves.

Indeed. Thaiembassy.com is not a Royal Thai Embassy but a commercial organisation. The official page of the Royal Thai Embassy in London does not yet show any update to the 14 day quarantine or Phuket sandbox arrangement. However, having said that, the interesting graphic posted by Bkk Brian does have the Royal Thai Consulate-General Sydney seal on it so is probably reliable.

The music thing is a distraction. The essential truth is that no country with a 9.00 pm curfew can sustain a tourist industry. Except in the most extreme emergencies curfews are a human rights abomination. Sadly the Thais seem all too ready to put up with them and one fears that in one form or another there will be a curfew in Thailand for a long time to come; they are just so convenient to the authoritarian mentality.

"The problem with Australians is not that so many of them are descended from convicts but that so many are descended from prison officers" Clive James.

I don't want to brag but I read that masterwork in 1966. You really do need to catch up on your reading. But then I've just finished the same author's Berlin Diary and that's been on the shelf since 1970.

Of course it's possible to live without alcohol but the choice should be yours. The link between alcohol induced bad behaviour and Covid is tendentious in the extreme; virtue signalling par excellence.

No, it was flagged up several months ago in Europe and America. Thailand is actually a bit behind with this one.

Then it will be just like countless other tourist venues round the world but with little to offer to make it top class.

But he was celebrating his own pleasure deriving directly from restrictions and hardships suffered by others. Quite rightly, this doesn't make anyone popular, particularly when coupled with subsequent comments which imply that those less fortunate are too lazy to take the work on offer. Unfortunately there is no situation so dire that someone won't derive gratification from it.

Dead right! But at least in Thailand the recovery rate is also highlighted, unlike In Britain where the media and the other doom goblins focus relentlessly days by day on infections, hospitalisations and deaths.