BritTim

I am forgetful at times. To ensure I will always remember to get a re-entry permit at the airport, I keep a slip of paper in my passport, next to my data page, that has in big red letters drawn with a felt tip pen: Re-entry Permit!

Right now, that is true. However, he is being advised by many here to just wait until he leaves the country and pay the fine. Sure, his current intention is to leave at the weekend. If that actually happens, the risk is low and the fine not too much. However, time and again, I have seen cases where people think "it will soon be resolved, and I can afford a small fine". In practice, he may leave at the weekend, or may not. Various things can happen to derail his plans, especially in the current environment. In his position, if not suffering brain fog as a side effect of the Covid infection, I would promptly sort this out before procrastinating into a crisis.

As a general rule, an extension still has to be arranged somehow even when it is not easy. Only an official of a pretty high rank has the power to waive the statutory fine for overstay. People are expected to arrange medical or other extensions even if they are comatose in hospital (in a good hospital, they will typically arrange the extension for the patient). Being in isolation, and unable to arrange an extension any other way, is a good time to contact an agent and have them do the application on your behalf.. Few things in Thailand are completely certain, but it is very unlikely he will avoid a fine for the overstay.

She is threatening to deny your extension (at which point you get seven days to leave the country). I would suggest that you do. If she followed her threat, and stamped you denied, it would become difficult to stay.

Are you here on a tourist entry, with existing "Covid" extensions, and looking for another one? If so, try yourself before using an agent. You might run into trouble, but there is a good chance everything will go smoothly. If rejected, you still have the option of using an agent. If you quietly ask around on the way out of Immigration, you can likely find someone right there. For a "Covid" extension, the cost should be less than 5,000 baht over and above the regular 1,900 baht extension fee. If not on a tourist entry, and looking for other than a "Covid" extension, explain your circumstances.

If he visited Immigration drunk, and assaulted the senior official, being arrested with only a two-day overstay would be very possible. Certainly, the officials have that power. Under normal circumstances, there is zero risk of arrest for such a short overstay, especially given the recent quarantine. I recommend regularising the permission to stay. Just go and get an extension. As someone else pointed out, the intention to leave at the weekend is a current plan that may not prove possible, and you can end up procrastinating into a genuine problem.

I am not going to defend big pharma. Some of their actions (including Pfizer's manipulated of data from SARS-CoV-2 vaccine clinical trials) are outrageous. That said, I am not in sympathy with much of the thrust of your post. Covid-19 is real. Development of fairly effective and safe vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 has been faster than most considered possible. Some effective treatments have been developed: initially monoclonal antibody (sadly, all except one ineffective against Omicron) and more recently antivirals. PCR tests are not a lie. PCR is one of the greatest advances in medical diagnosis of the last 100 years. It remains true that medical diagnosis is not an exact science. It would be great to have a Star Trek style full body scanner that would automatically tell you which disease(s) someone was suffering from. Unfortunately, that remains science fiction. For what it is worth, the most reliable detection of Covid-19 that is known might well be sniffer dogs. Some research has been done that shows suitably trained dogs as amazing in their ability to pick up active Covid-19 infections earlier than any tests. It is an impractical approach in practice.

With very sophisticated testing, it is possible to assign the probability of a true positive versus false positive caused by dead viral fragments. In an earlier PM I cited two links that report on attempts to do just that (based, for instance, on cycle thresholds and the number and type of markers detected). Current practical procedures take a very conservative approach that just treats any marker found as a positive, even if with sophisticated analysis it would be regarded as almost certainly a false positive. Note that such analysis is not useless. When authorities are assessing the importance of contact tracing after suspected entry of the virus into a new area, looking at the probabilities in combination with the subject's travel history and known prior infections, can inform the authorities on whether to invest major resources on follow up.

In the case of both TB and HIV, you have the same problem. To take an example, if using modern HIV medications, usually, none of the available tests (even extremely sophisticated ones) can detect the remaining very low levels of the virus remaining in your system. However, it is known to be extremely unlikely that the virus has been eliminated, and active infection returns if antiviral treatments are withdrawn. As you imply, it is worrying that there is no 100% reliable test for SARS-CoV-2, although many of the tests are very good. Research continues, and we must hope the scientists can solve the problem.

I sent you a PM as we have gone rather off topic.

You can believe me or not. There have been many documented cases of positive test results after RT-PCR tests were earlier negative. Samples are not clones of each other, and not all PCR tests are processed identically. Some are more sensitive to dead viral fragments than others. This is aggravating, but a fact.

65 is almost certainly the year (2565). My guess is that the 913 is a sequential number within year. Whatever, you do not need to worry about it. It is basically just a filing reference for easy location of your record when you return at the end of the under consideration period.

Usually true, but sadly negative tests can occasionally be followed by false positive ones. Also, if on arrival you test positive once, you are not given the opportunity to prove that it is a false positive.

Source: https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/fna/page4e_001053.html This is the current situation as of today. Japan has taken Covid extremely seriously from the start, and continues to do so.

You can get a single entry tourist visa that gives you 60 days plus 30-day extension. At the current time, there are "Covid" extensions that give an extra 60 days on top. These will be eliminated at some stage, but you might be lucky and still find they are available when you need one. The likely alternative (if the Covid extension has been withdrawn) will be a border run for a visa exempt entry (30 days) that you can optionally extend for a further 30 days. Possibly, flying out and back for the visa exempt entry may be required. As you are aware, there are somewhat onerous conditions to leaving and re-entering at the current time, but most likely they will be eased somewhat in time.

You would not have been able to apply for a double entry tourist visa for some years. The double entry (and triple entry) tourist visas were eliminated, and a new multiple entry tourist visa created that is only available from your home country, and has significant requirements before you can get it.

With quarantine on arrival, it is possible in principle. You need to be very careful about finding an airline that will carry you unvaccinated, and not using a transfer location that blocks the unvaccinated. Frankly, if you wish to engage in foreign travel, the difficulty of doing so when unvaccinated is an additional reason (over and above health and protecting others) to be vaccinated. I would also warn those who do not like protecting themselves against Covid-19 that you will need to use face masks when in Thailand.

If vaccinated, you have the option of entering one of the sandbox locations also. In my opinion, making a trip within the next month or so would involve a significant risk, as pointed out by others. You can have a false positive test even after the acute infection is over. This could happen for the pre-departure Covid test, or one of the tests after arrival in Thailand. In either case, this would have consequences.

I do not know where you are living. If you are in Bangkok, some agents can arrange retirement extensions (and the prerequisite Non O visas if necessary). However, they will charge more for doing the extension at Chaengwattana than if you will accept an out of province application. You would also need to briefly visit the immigration office.

The fact that you were rejected for a visa does not directly impact on whether you would receive a visa exempt entry upon arrival. However, unless you are from a country where they have unusually strict requirements for issuing visas (such as France) in most cases, the reason for rejection of your visa application might well disqualify you for a visa exempt entry also. In particular, if you spent the last two years in Thailand, only returned to home country briefly, and applied for a tourist visa, many embassies would refuse you a tourist visa. In such a case, trying to enter visa exempt might be successful but would be risky. As others have posted, letting us know the type of visa you applied for, the reason for the rejection, and preferably the country of application, would make it more likely that we can give good advice.

It seems likely that the OP is using an agent to apply for the extension of stay. Especially, if the application is being made by the agent out of province, it can take some time until the passport is returned. Commonly, the person affected will call the agent, worried that his original permission to stay date has expired. The agent tells him "the passport is still with immigration" (a lie, but the agent does not want to say the passport has not yet made it back from Nakorn Nowhere). In 99.9% of cases, this is annoying, but nothing to worry about. As ever, when using agents, something can go wrong, but this is rare.

In recent days, the CCSA has only reported a total figure for the number of imported infections each day (currently around 200 a day). On January 1st, the last day a breakdown was provided when the total number of imported infections was only 146 for the previous day, 21 of these was from the UK (23 from the US, and much lower numbers spread out over 35 other countries). The best English source that consistently summarises the CCSA daily reports is the Bangkok Post. Forum rules prevent me quoting or linking their articles. The Thai Public Relations Department provides much of the information from the CCSA in videos such as https://www.facebook.com/thailandprd/videos/1127728044636789/. If you can read Thai, visit https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/ where you can see the CCSA updates

Yikes! That explains the high number of people arriving in Thailand from the UK who test positive on arrival.

If not on overstay, that is at worst a 2,000 baht fine.

... and banks, in particular, do not care about your immigration status when you are just do normal deposits and withdrawals. They only look at your passport's data page. It would be very difficult to open a new account when on overstay, however.