Spilornis

Malaysia has today selected Sinovac for vaccination of its population over 60 years of age.

https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2021/04/681704/covid-19-vaccine-senior-citizens-get-sinovac

"JKJAV has reviewed the data and based on the trials in Brazil in which its paper is currently under review, (it showed that) the secondary efficacy against moderate and severe cases of Covid-19 for Sinovac were 83.7 per cent for moderate cases and 100 per cent for severe cases.

"So this vaccine is effective in preventing severe cases of Covid-19. This is precisely what we want to avoid for Phase 2 and for the senior citizens because over 80 per cent mortality from Covid-19 are those aged 60 and above.

"So you can give them 100 per cent protection against severe cases of Covid-19 which the Sinovac vaccine does afford and provide. This is something we need to continue and use to protect senior citizens.

In Malaysia the first outbreaks were in the detention centres on the porous border between Phillipines and Malaysia in Sarawak.

Then into the prisons by way of prisoner transfer and from there on cases exploded.

Would be very surprised if Thailand has avoided the problem.

BTW very few if any deaths in the prisons and most treated on site.In other words many could have it and the public would never know.

6 weeks to deliver around 1 million jabs

Will be interesting.

I assume the island of Phuket will be closed to the rest of Thailand

Next question is who will come?

There's not that many fully vaccinated Phuket wannatravellers and UK/US to Phuket is a long flight in these strange times

If they have a successful commercial home made batch of AZ by June that will be a great result.

CSL (the Australian producer) took over seven months to get it right and the European producers have had big setbacks.

Getting the batch right is apparently not that simple.

Hopefully they will benefit from all the other setbacks

Moderna surprises me as it's as scarce as hen's teeth for at least the next 6 months

10M per month for an adult population of around 53M  is quite doable by international standards.

It's the over 80 populace that is slow. Would be nice if they could start this group earlier.

After that it's pretty well a logistics issue

Sounding not dissimilar to the start of Malaysia's break out now running at 3500 per day with "medium" testing and 15 deaths (a new daily record yesterday).

Here the second wave was deep in South eastern Sabah (Borneo) where the border with the Phillipines and Indonesia is not that tight. Big outbreaks in the detention centres and then in the prison. Moved cities by prisoner transfers and then into the local community.

September Sabah calls an election and mass travel between Sabah and the Malaysian mainland sees mainland outbreaks including a few politicians.

Despite various mild lockdowns the cases have steadily risen.

Mid year last year the chief health spokesman said that 70% 0f cases were asymptomatic. Haven't noticed much more on that point since.

Malaysia hit a new daily record of over 4,000 cases yesterday.

They have decided to reduce their level of testing of close contacts as there are now simply too many cases.

Similarly mild cases which were quarantined in field hospitals are now quarantining at home.

Private hospitals are being asked to take up some of the load with ICU beds in some  States nearing capacity in the public hospitals. Discussions about who pays..patient, insurers or Government.

Hard to get an idea of daily testing numbers and where in the community the cases are located. Many among the foreign worker community but indications that it has also well and truly crossed over into the local community.

Death rates are generally in the region of 6-8 per day but I can see them going up.

While not panic stations the R rate is worryingly over 1.2. If it hits 1.5 the numbers will explode.

The lockdown in the larger states has a large number of exceptions as the Government is concerned about the economic impact.

Can the country hold back the dam wall until vaccines make an impact around August...

????

1 hour ago, chang1 said:

Isn't that how all vaccines work?

some vaccines... admittedly few..... provide sterilizing immunity

I was just trying to make the point that even those considered the most successful in eradicating a disease eg polio do not provide sterilizing immunity

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-few-vaccines-prevent-infection-heres-why-thats-not-a-problem-152204

50% is a disappointing headline numberand I can understand the reaction of many but the real story is the success rate at preventing severe covid where it appears to score highly.

Remember fighting this virus is all about avoiding extreme cases and reducing hospitalisation.

If the vaccine does this safely it's a success

AZ is only 62% effective at stopping infection according to its main trials but scores at nearly 100% in preventing severe covid.

As an aside the polio vaccines don't prevent polio they just limit the impact and our body fights off the germ with its normal immune system.

Johnson and Johnson to announce the results of its large South African trial Monday US time.

This is a one jab easy storage vaccine.

If over 70% effective it's a game changer for the world

https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/johnson-johnson-to-submit-trial-data-of-single-dose-covid-vaccine-this-month-11610424270775.html

AZ trials showed 60% prevention but over 90% prevention of severe case.

(The lo/hi dose is not being used. It hit 90% prevention thus allowing AZ to claimand average of 70%)

If I was in Thailand I would seriously consider the Sinovac which has just released its Brazilian results (an enormous trial) showing 78% effectiveness.

TBH AZ has been all over the place with its results and public communication.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-brazil-sinovac/sinovac-vaccine-shows-78-efficacy-in-brazilian-trial-details-sparse-idUSKBN29C1VZ

I

10 minutes ago, ourmanflint said:

It's worldwide for the duration of the pandemic as far as I am aware

correct

they are hoping the money will come from future booster shots like the annual flu vaccine. Even if the make a fifty cents a shot that could add around a billion to the bottom line each year or two.

The open hospital isolation is what Malaysia has been using since their outbreak in August/September. It is designed to control spread to other family members/workers  that would come from home isolation.

In recent weeks however the hospitals have reached capacity and people who test positive are told to remain home until an ambulance comes to pick them up. This can be several days from some media reports.

I assume Thai testing will be similar to Malaysian testing. Lots of targetted testing of worker hostels, prisons etc. No real message to the community at large to get tested.

Malaysia had another lockdown in October/November. It didn't work as the numbers were higher at the end than when it started. Now everything is pretty well open and hoping for the best

Does Thailand report its ICU rate.

That's one of the critical measures.

In Malaysia the daily figures often top 2000 (yesterday 2525) but the ICU and intubation rates remain relatively under control at 130 and 60 respectively. Mind you these numbers have been creeping up each day and often the reason for the numbers decreasing is death (8 yesterday).

I suspect both Malaysia and Thailand will survive okay until the vaccines arrive but it could be a close shave.

Stay safe everyone.

Serum the major producer of the AZ vaccine in India has a production capacity of almost 100 million doses a month starting this month.

A delivery of 2 million to Thailand in February is not impossible and if anything seems light.

India will keep a lot of Serum's production but physically it probably cannot deliver more than 50 million doses to its population per month.There's a lot to go around.

The AZ vaccine is also made elsewhere including the UK and Australia. Judging from the Australian reports you need about 3 months to brew your first commercial batch and then it's business as usual.(Over simplified I know.)

Here's an excellent article on why the vaccines have become available so early compared to earlier vaccines.

Basically it's the money and resources thrown at the problem plus a little luck not the least of which was that the virus was genetically mapped very early in the process.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/26/ten-reasons-we-got-covid-19-vaccines-so-quickly-without-cutting-corners

As always there are two sides to the equation.

The country you live in and the receiving country.

If both countries have 60% plus of their population vaccinated the community risks while not non existent are low.

Those countries currently with high infection rates such as UK, Europe and USA will be content with a higher risk threshold than those with zero or near zero(Australia and NZ).

I'm seeing the second half of 2021 as lots of bubbles with 2022 being more a declining list of no go countries.. Libya, Syria etc

From Thailand's perspective the sooner they start vaccinations the better.In reality however reasonable availability of vaccines is at least 2-3 months away. How they roll it out is a local decision but perhaps pick a medium province and do a trial.

What would stuff the world is if the vaccine only gave 4-6 months of immunity as you would be continually chasing your tail.

Quarantine of some nature will be with us until September at the very least. Malaysia has reduced the quarantine period to ten days and perhaps countries may be more willing to accept home isolation with some form of monitoring.

The March to June period of 2021 will provide many answers.

Astra Zenneca is due for UK approval in the next 48 hours according to many media reports.

The unknown is what will be said if anything about the low/hi dosage approach which showed 90% efficacy as compared to the hi/hi dosage which rated only 62% protection.

The good news is that AZ is relatively easy to produce and distribute. Any country capable of producing flu vaccine can produce it.

It is likely to be the vaccine used in India where Serum is one of the worlds largest vaccine manufacturers. They already have many hundreds of millions of doses ready to go when authorisation is given.

Hi

In Malaysia I quite often buy the "fresh milk" imported from Australia.

I have noticed that the use by dates are much further out (say by 6-10 days) than I would see on an equivalent purchase when buying it in Oz.

Just wondering if it has a second level of treatment or the like

Many thanks

By the way agree on Dutch Lady being reconstituted... it has a completely different taste

Given that the minimum income to be required to pay income tax is 150,000 per year, and typical wages for manual labor fall far below that figure, it wouldn't surprise me to see such a ratio.

Nor would it surprise me to find out only a small percentage of the women are "contributing" to the tax base given that minimum wage is about half the tax exemption limit.

Like chrisinth, we have hundreds of Thais working for us, and they're generally pretty good folks. (If they weren't, they no longer work for us- and in short order) Most of the office people are women and most of the field workers are men. Just works that way in the Thai oil business. And they all make enough to pay taxes.

This situation is reflective of most Asian economies (Malaysia and Vietnam for example) where a very low percentage of the working population pay income taxes. As value added taxes are introduced through Asia the tax base is being increased.

BTW the tax threshold in Australia is around 200,000 baht but of course minimum wages are higher.

Does not excuse the OP's rant

Looks like an unexpected result.

If leave does get up...........Not too may changes in the short term (other than a new PM) but medium/ longer term could be interesting.

On all the Brit expats in Europe I do not expect change for the middle wealthy and up (they will arrange some form of visa) but for the less well off it is hard to see why Spain etc would want them to remain given their incredibly high youth unemployment etc