hobobo

9 minutes ago, thaimelody said:

Nandos

Closed

2 hours ago, Matzzon said:

So, now you are all given an option and your government is trying to help and assist you. Then there is no need for staying and complaining over that everything get so hard and Thailand is making you jump through hoops.

Now there is a chance to get information and get help as well as register for the last plane out. 

Having worked at an Embassy many years ago (though not in the Consular Section), I still find it unbelievable that so many people in general, and TVF members in particular, believe that the Embassy's main role is to be a mummy to everyone who is as irresponsible as possible and who IMHO, should never have left the home shores.

I can imagine the hate mail that will surely follow, but after reading the constant barrage for many years, I had to have my say.

1 hour ago, Zikomat said:

Who told you they are reasonable? 

Definitely not in my son's case. Luckily he got out just after midnight this morning after buying four tickets in the last five days - and some of those "definitely going" flights were cancelled just hours after purchase. Prior to this Immigration told him he'd be on overstay or, worst case scenario, a guest of the IDC. So where's reasonable?

5 hours ago, webfact said:

but the ministers had to think about the consequences before taking action.

5555  555  555  5555

2 hours ago, BritManToo said:

So you consider an open beer bottle as irrefutable evidence the driver was drinking?

 

No, but it is  against the law. 

52 minutes ago, Kerryd said:

Glad we were able to have the Burapa Bike Week party in February without any problems !

I was watching the crowds everyday to see how many people would be wearing masks during the 3 days. Saw a couple of (Thai) joggers one morning. Some municipal workers doing maintenance on the grounds and, in the middle of the day, I saw 1 Asian guy (don't know if he was Thai) wearing a mask - but his wife and child weren't !

No reports of anyone catching the virus from that event (which ended over 2 weeks ago) and still no reports of anyone in Pattaya having been infected.

I mentioned as much to the Immigration Officer I spoke to yesterday. He was wearing a mask and he asked me something (wasn't I worried or something) and I noted that there weren't any infections in Pattaya and that most of the cases were in Bangkok.
I also noticed that none of the other (Western) foreigners were wearing masks (but 3 Asian women who were there had masks on).

Read an article yesterday about "mistakes made" that have helped spread the virus, like people who were tested and cleared only to be found later to have been infected. And ones who were tested as positive and then accidentally released. And things like the poor manner in which the infection was handled on the one cruise ship. 
Apparently the (American) CDC also screwed up by refusing to use the test kits the World Health Organization was issuing. The CDC decided to make it's own testing kits which turned out to be ineffective and resulted in infected people being cleared and released.

Of course, it was the WHO themselves who initially said that cancelling flights to/from China was a bad idea ! They said that back in January when the first few countries started banning flights from China.
I shook my head at that one.
"Lets see, we know the centre of the epidemic is Wuhan, China, but we think it is a bad idea to ban travel to/from that area. Much better to let potentially infected people travel freely around the world."

Hopefully whatever idiot thought that up was fired soon after.

The infections cropping up in other parts of the world also seem to be because of stupid mistakes. In Italy, they tested a guy who was infected. That person was then allowed to freely wander around the hospital for over a day before anyone thought to quarantine him !

Or the woman in England who thought she might be infected and instead of contacting a hospital (who would have sent an ambulance apparently) or using a private vehicle, she took an UBER to the hospital (and presumably never said anything to the driver) !

In South Korea, a Christian cult group performed a mass wedding and told the attendees to remove their masks. Apparently the cult is somewhat secretive and nobody really knows who is a member or how to get ahold of them. That lead to a spike in infections there.

It seems that most of the victims are still "elderly" (65+ being the median age) or those with underlying health conditions.

It occurred to me that one of the reasons so many in China have died could possibly be due to the high number of heavy smokers in that country. As this virus is a variation of the Flu (influenza) it primarily affects the lungs. I remember what a normal cold/flu was like back in the day when I was a smoker and I probably wasn't even in the same league as your average Chinese smoker (when it came to amount smoked and quality of the product). A regular cold/flu was bad enough back then, this bug would probably have an even worse effect. 

I haven't seen anything (yet) about how many of the fatalities may have been smokers but I'd guess a large number of them (in China at least) were heavy smokers. Add to that the amount of smog present in so many of their larger cities, it's no wonder they have such a high mortality rate. 
(Saw a "smog map" yesterday showing the amount of pollution over Eastern Asia, before the virus and just recently. While South Korea still showed large amounts of pollution, much of Eastern China had gone from heavily polluted to almost clear - compared to what it used to look like.)

That might also account for why the mortality rate in the rest of the world is (apparently) much lower. Fewer heavy smokers breathing less polluted air (and being somewhat younger than the median age for fatalities) - as well as probably having access to better healthcare.

And the UK just announced (yesterday) that companies employing more than 10 people have to give them 2 weeks of paid leave starting on 6 Mar !
That ought to put a huge hit on the economy ! 2 weeks of virtually no production while still having to pay regular wages ! Ouch !

Oh well. I was so looking forward to not going to the Music Festival (again) ! Whatever will I do ?

But the Tourism Minister said that all the virus will be gone by Songkran so no worries !

War and Peace will be a pleasant breather after this