pentagara

On 6/25/2021 at 1:49 PM, NCC1701A said:

there is a new trend where people especially kids sit at home and look at all the places they want to go and houses they can't afford. 

 

did not see a friendly reminder about AirBNB sort term rentals being illegal in Thailand. 

Yeah, kind of wonder how you'd get a SHA+ certification as a host for an illegal short term Airbnb place ????

But true, it probably was more of an airbnb branding piece than an advertisement for Thailand...

10 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

 

Here we go again. The assumption that the shortcomings of the early Bangkok ASQ that was handling a whole lot more visitors will automatically be repeated in the Phuket sandbox.

 

You guys are too funny. Predictable but funny.

Yes, true. For ASQ you're pretty much free to go to any province afterwards. For the Phuket sandbox that's not confirmed, so there's a chance that the province one goes to applies the standard rules for intra-Thai travel. Currently there are 10 provinces within Thailand that allow arrival of visitors from other Thai provinces without quarantine, a few more if you're vaccinated (with a Thai document to prove it?):

https://twitter.com/RichardBarrow/status/1408032115552256004?s=20

Those rules can change any day of course, especially considering the Covid infection situation in Thailand right now...

Of course, if the sandbox is not as successful as it is planned to be, then the sandbox rules might be improved at any point in time ????

https://twitter.com/RichardBarrow/status/1408032115552256004?s=20

Ah, just learned that Phuket issued a new rule for the sandbox:  If you want to leave the island after quarantine for another province (e.g. Bangkok), you need the following document at checkin at the airport for the domestic flight:

"Proof of COVID-19 test showing that COVID-19 was not detected during the 14-night stay in Phuket with the document issued by an agency of the Ministry of Public Health"

In ASQ in Bangkok, this document was sent by mail (postal mail) roughly one week after quarantine was done. At checkout the hotel said that they were very sorry that they can't provide the document at checkout since they didn't get it yet0, they were only able to provide a confirmation by the contract hospital that the quarantine test results were negative. At the time, no one ever cared about this document, also not for travel to other provinces.

Now Phuket makes it mandatory if you want to leave the province by air. That of course would be on top to requirements eg. Bangkok sets for entering their province ????

If one really needs to go to Thailand now, it actually might be better to choose ASQ instead of the Phuket sandbox. Quite likely cheaper (considering what they charge for tests in Phuket for the sandbox), and also actually can be planned.

40 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

 

Yes, and when it these early farang returners report that it was all well managed and their experience was great, the more reluctant farangs will sign up. When they also report that it's working even better than they expected, the 'tourists' will start to sign up. Once the word spreads among tourists that it's a decent vacation experience, it will be high season.

 

BTW, I'm a glass-half-full kinda guy.

Yes, they'll gladly report that on days 5 and 12 they were rushing to find those new test centers in Phuket where they were required to take the RT-PCR tests for 2,800 THB a piece (or how they gave up and just went to one of the private hospitals to pay THB 3,500 there).  What an unusual an exciting experience. I assume also the arrival test has to be paid, and in case you go to Bangkok after the 14 days it would be 4 tests, so USD 440 total for the PCR tests in Thailand (and yes, they have scrapped the cheap antigen tests now for the sandbox). What a lavish holiday. Not sure this will lead to many more bookings by their friends though ????

34 minutes ago, sanuk711 said:

"People in Thailand look set to be restricted in choice of vaccine"

 

Gosh...You mean the same as every other country in the world.....would you like to name a country that is given free vaccinations, & when you walk in they say....what one would you like? just tell us and we will get that one for you.

 

Any chance of putting a non negative headline about Thailand--Yup I agree they have fallen behind about the vaccinations---but this sort of headline is really Nit picking.

Hong Kong. Choice: Pfizer/BioNTech or Sinovac (you choose when you register). Cost: free. Availability: now for everyone above 16. But true, there's no choice in most other countries.

2 hours ago, Trujillo said:

"Owing to a rumor that COVID-19 Rapid Tests are being sold online and that the public can buy them and test themselves at home, the Department of Medical Sciences has clarified that the test kit is a test for antibodies only; it cannot detect the virus or indicate if the user is infected with the virus. The rapid tester should be used and the results interpreted only by specialists or medical technicians. If home users get a negative reading in the result, they might think they do not have the virus and then unintentionally spread the virus to others. So the department has warned the public not to buy the COVID-19 Rapid Test and use it themselves.
Category : NEWS ROOM
April 21, 2021"

 

(Bold added)

 

APPROVED SOURCE: 

The Government Public Relations Department

 

 

 

The statement as such is correct, that a rapid test is largely useless if administered by non-health professionals. If the rapid test is done correctly, it's actually painful and most non-health professionals will stop way before while getting the sample... Evwn then they are less reliable than PCR tests, but at least cheap and quick.

Nevertheless, there's probably a translation error. Rapid tests are typically antigen tests and not antibody tests. That's quite a difference.

1 hour ago, Blot said:

In the last 6 months, and on 4 occasions, I have been charged between 4,500 and 6,000 Baht for Covid tests by Bangkok Hospital Group. 

You probably got a different test though. In Phuket they do a rapid antigen test (testkit production cost about 2USD without logistics), you probably got a PCR test (testkit production cost about 30USD, plus hospital fees to pay e.g. the hospital admin, rent and the person with safety gear that gets your sample, ... - unless state subsidized, a PCR tests costs in total 120USD or more in most countries, especially at airports and private hospitals).

A PCR test analysis has to be done in a lab, so it takes longer to get the result. An antigen test can be done by anyone, cheaply and quickly, no lab required, results delivered in 10 mins or less. You get what you pay for though, antigen tests are more unreliable with a higher chance that your test result is wrong (both ways). They would not be accepted for international travel to most countries.

5 hours ago, Kaopad999 said:

Then i'm surprised the Hi-So's that are refusing to go to the hospitals didn't instead opt for a nicer hospital. It;s not like they wouldn't be able to afford it. 

No availability. You would just be a major headache for the private hospital. Most private hospitals state now that you can get tested there, bit if you're positive, they don't take you.

1 minute ago, malibukid said:

where's the closest civilized country that one can fly to get vaccinated?  most of us will be gone before these idiots will get their act together.  HK? SGN? Tokyo?  otherwise it back to the U.S.

Depends where you have a residence permit or citizenship. You won't be able to get into any of these places otherwise.

24 minutes ago, fleccer said:

Thailand's policy of hospitalising all who test positive for COVID-19, even without symptoms

 

What?? So they would like to hospitalize anyone who tests positive for the swab even without symptoms, all based on totally unreliable tests.

No, it's not "would like to". They do. It's currently enforced practice and has been for months. It might be because they don't trust people behaving responsibly after a positive result, not sure. In a way, hospitalization is an expensive form of quarantine.

Irrespective, PCR tests are not unreliable, especially if you're tested more than once (as you typically are after a positive result). But that's a different story and has nothing to do with hospitalization practice.

Yeah, that would be a miracle... From basically 0 vaccinations per month (or whatever in the four digits) to 10 million per month. Sounds like a challenge...

8 minutes ago, SteveB2 said:

Is it just me...

 

I am having problems imagining the Thai goverment's legendary logistics and organisational skills distributing 60 million vaccine doses before the end of this year 2021.

 

I mean... thats around 10 million jabs per month, even i they start in july ????

 

The only way it's going to happen is that they get Lazada to deliver and administrate the jabs...

7 hours ago, Stygge said:

Nobody realizes Pfizer vaccine is a crazy idea for Thailand?
It´s a mRNA vaccine. It takes handling even European countries have problems with. It requires freezing temperatures well below a normal freezer, even under transport. The smallest shake of the vaccine take away all effect. Personel has to get special training to handle this vaccine and evenso large parties of the vaccine has to be discarded because of slight mishandling.

There is a great risk people in Thailand is only getting a placebo injection with no active ingredients. To a very high price. This vaccine is expensive.

Astra Zeneca and Jansen vector vaccine is the way to go in developing countries.

If they actually end up purchasing the BioNTech vaccine, it anyway likely will mostly be sold by private hospitals. Hospitals can't purchase from Pfizer directly due to liability issues (Pfizer/other vaccine manufacturers won't sell...), so the government is needed inbetween.

As for mRNA not being viable due to temperature issues: If only private hospitals in major cities offer it, the cold chain challenge should be managable. For large scale distribution, it actually depends whether it's an issue, since it's not mRNA specific, but depends on the lipids as well. Curevac's and the ARCoV vaccine are both mRNA based and don't have the temperature issue to the degree of the current generations of BioNTech and Moderna. Both are planned to become available in the 2nd half of 2021. They probably could buy Curevac now in addition to Pfizer and get it at the same time as the Pfizer/BioNTech one. Curevac is expected to get approval in June in major markets. But then, the Oxford vaccine ("AstraZeneca") doesn't have the cold storage issue either, so it's actually a non-issue. For large scale distribution, the Oxford vaccine will be used in Thailand anyway.

As for vaccines for developing countries, for now it's Oxford/AstraZeneca, but it's actually not an ideal long term solution for multiple reasons. If it were the perfect solution, we'd see large scale distribution now, but alas we don't, and it's not because of the blood clots. As a result, hopes are actually on NDV-HXP-S.

9 minutes ago, scorecard said:

 

OK, but I suspect there will be supply chains which private hospitals can access. Money talks.

 

The issue is liability for side effects which private hospitals don't want to/can't cover. That's also the reason vaccine manufacturers don't want to sell to private entities. As a result nothing happened so far. If the government imports, vaccine manufacturers are excempted from any liability, so manufacturers are willing to at least talk about selling. A private contract cannot excempt either manufacturer or hospital of the liability, someone will have to cover the cost if a patient dies eg. from blood clots. Government has understood the issue now though and there are talks to use the government agency that normally only purchases medical supplies for the public health system as general Covid vaccine importer. Private hospitals would then buy the vaccine from the agency and the liability would end up with the state (with treatment of any side effects in state hospitals, even if the vaccine is offered by a private firm). Then vaccine manufacturers would be more willing to sell. The same setup has also been used for all Covid vaccine imports so far (AstraZeneca/Sinovac).

3 hours ago, BookShe said:

Let's just keep an eye on fatalities. Number of cases are less important. There can be an order of magnitude more cases undetected. Of course there's a correlation between case numbers and mortality, but it seems to be Thailand was pretty lucky in both terms since the start of this pandemic. ( I have no idea why)

Deaths follow with a two to three week latency, it's how Covid works...

18 hours ago, Pattaya Spotter said:

Of course anyone buying in during the 3-5 year period would be grandfathered in...why do some always assume the absurd? A more interesting question is what happens when it's time to sell...can a new foreign buyer retain ownership? And yes, leases are a maximum of 30 years at present (for thais and foreigners).

Learning from history. Read up what happened when they passed a similar law for some housing developments during/after the financial crisis in Asia in the 90s. Of course, it could be different this time, but no one knows, since it's usually arbitrary.

What happens when it's time to sell is quite clear though: The law at the time of sale applies.

The options already mentioned here are probably better, but still here an overview with some more prices by vfs (a visa processing company):

https://www.vfsglobal.com/en/individuals/covid-test.html

8 hours ago, Thaiwrath said:

Obviously an expert in the N.S.C. has studied the science of Covid, and has come to the conclusion that it is more dangerous after 9.00pm ! 

Genius ! ????

Nah, they did a survey among viruses and asked whether pub-goers really become immune to them, once they drink alcohol and act like supermen. The viruses all couldn't stop laughing and eventually exploded (resulting in mutations)....

4 hours ago, blacksuitdandruff said:

Word on the street is that c19 only  infects people after 9 p.m. 

It's actually not the virus being that smart. The issue is the percentage of people running around without masks in Bangkok after 9pm who think they are immune to the virus or much stronger than it. The number of such individuals exponentially increases at certain places after this time. This seems to be especially true for alcohol serving spots, that attract this subset of people like a honey pot attracts flies.

Actually, I do agree though, that there would be a better policy to "save the economy".  When I am in the elevator of my condo in Bangkok, 9/10 times I see someone without a mask, it's non-Asians, sadly. It's even observable on a nation level. The majority of Covid deaths are outside of Asia. I doubt this is only because governments in Asia and in Thailand are doing such an excellent job. It's probably also due a higher percentage of know-it-all, non-educatable, self-entitled and selfish 'people' who promote to stop mask wearing and other precautions so we can "save the economy". It's a bit ironic, considering it's this exact group of people that actively helps to create the clusters and with it the economic mess we're still in.

So, if it were up to me, I certainly wouldn't only implement the 9pm rule and I wouldn't only slap spreaders running around without masks with a 5000HKD fine like in Hong Kong (US$650).

I would ensure that anyone caught without a mask would be put on a party island full of their colleagues with free flow alcohol and no mask requirement, even before 9pm, and without the need to get a "gene-altering" vaccine beforehand. Ideally there should be a few people thrown in the mix that are confirmed with one of the recent variants that evolved due to such selfishness and which affect younger people as much as the elderly. It's just a flu, after all, so why not. This way this sub-group of people would experience first hand "how to live with the flu", as some other poster promoted in this thread. Anyone would also be allowed to leave again, after they have had "the flu" there.

It's fine if a grown-up wants to check with their bare hands whether the hot iron is really hot. They shouldn't be allowed to burn anyone else though.

This setting truely would create the environment they wish for, just for them. It would also ensure that we can "save the economy" like they say, and it only would be at the cost of those few on this island who actively wished for it. After all, it's actually them who ruin the economy by causing the clusters and spreads.

Gosh, it might even help save the reputation of the 90% of the non-Asians that aren't actively working on ruining life for everyone else.

Ah, sweet dreams haha.

50 minutes ago, superal said:

It seems that ordering the AZ vaccine is one thing but getting the delivery is another , not to mention that as you say the current vaccines will offer little protection to the forthcoming variants of the virus . So Thailand has to be more proactive and on the front foot as it would appear that the current vaccines will only be effective for the best part of this year . 

One good point is the UK will be manufacturing the updated vaccines in the UK , so look out MR. E.U. 

Not sure how that would affect the EU. So far the EU shipped more than 10 million (!) doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the UK plus the UK continues to receive Pfizer BioNtech shipments from the EU, while the UK shipped exactly 0 vaccine doses to EU countries. On top of this, Johnson does now its best to annoy the EU politicians by basically telling them they are idiots. It might be smart to benefit from others, it's a bit dumb to advertise it though and laugh at them. What impact do you think this will have on future vaccine shipments from the EU to the UK, specifically the AstraZeneca one? Anyway, not my problem.

For Thailand it would be interesting to know, how much change effort is needed in the Thai factory to produce the updated vaccine. Hopefully its easy and ideally they already plan to produce the AstraZeneca/Oxford version 2 in the Thai factory from Q3 as well. That would be great, actually, it would allow Thailand (and other countries) to catch up and gain better protection to prepare for the Q3 travel season, when the new variants should be quite prevalent globally.

There's a risk that the current vaccine versions won't offer sufficient protection come December to lift quarantines in most countries. It could even lead to retightening of travel restrictions like we have seen this January for UK, Brazil and South Africa, where flughts were stopped. It's still a huge headache to get to Hong Kong from the UK for example, vaccinated or not. So Thailand would benefit heavily if they could carry out mass-innoculations in the country with an already updated AZ vaccine from the Thai factory... Let's see. Vaccinations clearly are more of a marathon, not a sprint.

Sounds great, hope it has an effect, not that it's likely. It's insane that poisounos air is even subsidized now. Sugar cane burning in the season Dec to Feb is the known main reason for the disgusting air in recent years. The sugar industry should be charged with the cost for PM2.5 masks, lung cancer and all the other 'health benefits' they are creating at the moment in Thailand. The issue certainly is not the farmers that are forced to ruin their own health, but the profiteering industry lot and their lobbyists in various positions that get all the profit.

A few years ago setting up sugar factories was highly regulated due to their extremely bad impact on everyone, nowadays the industry suddenly is highly regarded by government and even subsidized. A good thing for the government that no one is allowed to raise that as an issue.

13 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

If the transfer came from abroad there should be no problem to get the credit advice. It would still be coming from a bank or financial institution of some kind.

It depends on whether Immigration accepts a statement from the remittance service (e.g. Transferwise) or whether they only accept a confirmation from a local Thai bank. Remittance service work like this: a. personal foreign bank account --> b. Transferwise foreign bank account --> c. Transferwise Thai bank account --> d. personal Thai bank account. From the perspective of the foreign personal bank its a domestic transfer to the Transferwise local account. From the personal Thai bank's perspective it's a domestic Thai transfer from the Thai Transferwise account to one's personal Thai account. Unless Immigration accepts the transfer statement from Transferwise, i.e. a non-Thai bank, I'm not sure who would issue said credit note. It definitely cannot be issued by one's own personal banks, since from their perspectives these are domestic transfers. The only hint that it was not domestic is that the money went to a remittance service, i.e. they know that Transferwise was the receiver (abroad) or sender (Thailand).

2 hours ago, MuayThaiGuy said:

"I truly believe that sometime in the future there will be medical anthropologists and historians who will look back at this period of time at our healthcare - not only in the US, but throughout the world - and they'll say WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?..
 

..That they could inject their children with heavy metals, known carcinogens and viruses from animals like monkeys and cows and chickens.. and somehow think that injecting that stuff into a 7 to 10 pound infant was an improvement on their health.
 

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? How could that population have been so seriously scammed by big organizations that have NO liability."

- Dr Sherry Tenpenny

Sounds quite clueless. What has Sherry doctored in, in case she exists and has a doctorate?

59 minutes ago, IamNoone88 said:

There is a perception that you cannot catch Covid and pass it on once you have been vaccinated. This is untrue at worst and unproven at best. The vaccination only means that you become less sick because you should be more immune. However, it still seems possible to catch and transmit Covid after vaccination. Research is still ongoing. The uniformed are making these demands to open up the borders without the science and research to support it and that is very dangerous at early stage as it could only lead to another massive round of lock downs in the future.

The tourism industry representatives (TAT, tourist ministers, hotel chain/airline/retail/restaurant & hospitality representatives, ...) are making these demands, and of course they do. They are paid for it, it's literally their job to try to get the industry going again. They are not medical experts, so their demands are weighted by everyone else accordingly.

25 minutes ago, Jumbo1968 said:

In a similar position, I will have had both jabs by March hopefully I can go private and my Thai partner can have jab but we have a 5 year old son. We have been ‘stuck’ in the U.K. since May last year.

Would he have to go into quarantine or would he be allowed to self isolate ?

How is a 5 year old going to self-isolate? Will the child do everything by him/herself for two weeks before it can meet its parents again? Very unlikely. Plus, where would the self-isolation happen? And that's even without mentioning the mental harm done by parents abandoning their small child for two weeks. It probably would be better to wait or to go into quarantine together.