totally thaied up

Last night on Thai PBS World, they spoke about hiding numbers. They said with social media, it is too hard to do as if things were bad and people getting sick left right and center, Twitter and Facebook would be awash with information. They cannot suppress it.

I think the numbers coming out are real in what they want to show but as I said yesterday, they are not testing enough people due to cost and they are just focus testing on subgroups now. I think Thailand is doing a good job but more testing needs to be done. My wife told me of one person on Twitter that had a high temp, had returned from Russia recently, and was not tested.

People like that should not fall through the cracks and need to be tested.

30 minutes ago, Misterwhisper said:

So why no mentioning of Chinese tourists, Dr. Yong? Why only lay the blame squarely on tourists from Europe and North America?

My wife told me this morning she was told today that the virus came from Italy and was spread by Americans both through China an Thailand. She said this was coming through Chinese news sources. My Father-in-law tells me different. He tells me this came from the Chinese. My Mother-in-law is Chinese and blames it on the Chinese but it seems the powers to be want a different message. The powers to be are the CCP.

This is the Wuhan Flu - don't try to tell me different. Until we we doing high levels of testing here, this is all just smoke and mirrors. I hope the numbers are reducing but with little testing, we cannot realistically say. 

Today I went into town after 10 days holed up as I needed another two weeks supply of meat. I don't have a freezer and can only fit in two weeks of meat at a time. In Chiang Mai, there is a slight difference on the amount of people out on the road but when I got to Marko, it was packed as per normal just like any other day. I loaded up with my meat and headed home, spending 20 minutes max in the shop. A few girls walking around with no masks on.

I am reading if they do not get the social distancing right, more extreme measures will be used. At this current stage, just looking at Marko and my local village market, social distancing has not gotten through to the general public. I got to say this is more village level as I have not been to Bangkok for some time and do not know what is going on there. Life just goes on and this curfew will really only effect those that are out at this time of night and in our area, mostly they are drinking. Not too sure what else this curfew is going to do. Australia (my home country) has enabled the Bio-security Act and has said most likely for the next six months, this is how life is going to be. So really, this all could go on for a while. 

With so many people here living from day to day, I cannot see the future. We cannot let people go without a job or money or there will be problems if this goes on for too long. Most my village lives day to day, week to week and everyone is already complaining. Most my friends relied on the Chinese (export and tourism) and some have not been paid for months. It is hard to say what it going to happen, but they won't be able to keep this up for too long.

2 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

We are all missing the big picture, as we are not being told the truth but a pack of lies.  If the numbers are as low as they say, why the near total shutdown, and limited curfew.......please tell us

Once again today (second day running), I took a chair, sat out the front of my house at 5p.m and watched all the motorcycles ride past, driving down to our market. I could only see from a distance how many bikes and people where there, but the market was heaving with people.

For the last 9 days my family has stayed at home. No markets, one trip to Big C to load up on food (9 days ago), so we are following the order. Still, with most of our village out and about in the afternoon, nothing has changed here. Just more people wearing masks. Look, I understand most/all have to work. Miss a few days of pay, and trouble is brewing. Still, I have had friends being told to work for 50% less to keep the companies upright or they will go under. It is all about money and food on the table. Other friends of ours have not worked for the last 14 days and they do not have much in savings.

I am starting to wonder why as well for the near total shutdown and limited curfews. Are the numbers really bad enough to shut the full tourism of this country down as other parts of the economy. Something is not making sense. We got guys telling us in the press this is nowhere near good enough, yet my village does not give a damn. So what is really going on?

None of this is making sense to me. Yet I look at the UK, US and Italy and all I see is mayhem and I am worried that could happen here. Most my family are old and are at risk. My Father-in-law put a ban on all people coming to our house.

What are you to believe. I watched on TV tonight (Thai PBS World) the American Ambassador say the numbers are good in Thailand but others online are saying not enough tests are being done for a true picture. So once again, who or what are we to believe for such wide shut down of tourism. My home country in Australia has just shut its doors on everyone and the restrictions they are putting on people with jail time and fines are harsh to say in the least.

None of it makes sense to me at this stage. The world is just one big cluster truck at this time. 

21 minutes ago, ThaiPauly said:

Markets are heaving, no social distancing, many not wearing masks

I sat out the front of my house this afternoon and watched all the motorcycles drive down the road to our village markets. The market at 5p.m was from what I could see from a distance was packed. So much for social distancing. 

This is far from over. I hope I am wrong but over the coming months, we will find out.

These questions are going to take a lot of time before we know answers.

Tourism is going to be hurt world wide for a long time and Thailand, being near China, I feel will take maybe more time to recover. I read a article that the British are very upset with the Chinese and they said that one day, China will have a day of reckoning for not telling the truth about this virus. Our Airlines in Australia are asking for billions of dollars from our Government at this time in Loans to keep things afloat. Our economy may not recover for a very, very long time, so it is not just Thailand in this boat. Most the world is.

Just in my household, we are down 45,000 baht a month from lose of wages due to the virus from my family members not being able to work. This will be spread far and wide across this country, so yes, crime could climb. My wife has been asked by hotels that she does books for, to suspend her work for the time being. So it is affecting average families.

Some say the world may never be the same and social distancing may be around for a lot longer then we know. It may take many months for this virus to burn itself down. We just do not have enough information yet to understand and it is still just in it's infancy I feel. I watched on Thai PBS World last night a doctor saying things have not started yet.  

I see no racism in my village but my Father-in-law told me this virus came from China and the average Thai person knows this and they are not happy about this at all. Saying this virus is spread by farangs (even if it is media hype) is not certainly what they all think. We have large signs all up around our village saying beware of the Wuhan Flu, not covid-19.

The future at this stage is hard to see but this will all die down but for things to go back to the same same they were before, I just do not know. We have seen the world locked down over a virus, seen our economies get trashed and in some way, the world panicked. Hard to see what the outcome long term will be but for the short term, things have changed.  

16 minutes ago, Yinn said:

Where the village?

Very close to Chiang Mai

11 minutes ago, GordyS said:

Why would it be on social media? 

If you looked at how quickly things get spread on Twitter and Facebook and how  scathing Thais can be on those platforms, I am sure we would hear of something. Even if the Government tried to shut it down, it would leak somewhere. Last night they made a really big stuff up of the 5,000 baht payment scheme (the server went down) and within moments it was trending on Twitter (like a 100,000 tweets in 30 minutes and people were angry). 

3 minutes ago, Hockeybik said:

People really don't appear to be taking this social distancing thing all that seriously

Our market in the village is packed.

I drove past it yesterday afternoon in my car when I went to an ATM to get some cash. People are everywhere, the market vendors were all cooking fish  and Moo Ping and it was just another typical day out as far as I could see.

I have not left my house for seven days and I needed some cash for our delivery drivers. My family has taken it seriously but it seems in our area, no one else has. I am feeling like a fool sitting at home doing what they say is the right thing when everyone else in our area does not seem to give a <deleted>.

Seems to me if this virus is wide spread or going to be wide spread, herd immunity is the way they are going about it because no one gives a stuff in my village. If people suddenly get sick in my area, I won't feel sorry at all as for at this moment, it is still free for all and those of us that are following what the Government is asking, are feeling pretty silly at the moment.

The streets may be empty, the Shopping Malls closed but back to the villages everyone had gone home to, life just goes on like normal. The impact this must be having to the economy must be huge and if the Government has shut things down for 30 days, there must be some reasoning to it. Either the figures do not stack up or we are being left in dark as the costs of this is just too big/high to make any sense of it.

I am really at a loss what to say. A News Paper article from a paper we cannot mention on here said today that Thai people are not taking social distancing seriously. What is to be done? I don't know but it certainly is not making any sense to me at this time.

Just now, kingstonkid said:

I don't think it will be a decline now but it may happen after the virus panic is over and people go to renew their visas. 

I think it will be after as well. Perfect time to start rejecting visas after everyone is out. Those that are caught here are going to have to leave one day and if they keep on with certain restrictions, you may have trouble if you have a long history of Tourist Visas getting back in. They have been turning the screws up for ages and now is a great time to implement change.

Maybe this is little too late, yet if something gets done right now, it is better than not starting at all. I can see after the decree gets implemented, things changing a lot in the next few days. 

Yesterday I went to BigC in Chiang Mai to get some supplies. Plenty of meat was on offer as well as all the normal staples of daily life. No one was pushing and shoving over toilet paper or any other object. The Thais were just maybe buying a little more (lots of water) and just about everyone one in my small village has stocked up a 50Kg bag of rice for 'just in case'.

In my hometown in Australia, my parents are living off basics and they cannot currently get any meat. They have been buying frozen fish. They said they have never seen such foolishness in there life. Our Prime Minister says they have enough food for 75 million people and people just need to go back to buy how they did before and all would be right. Brains gone out the window it seems.

My parents told me to stay in Thailand with my Thai family in our village and just to self isolate and sit things out. After having our house on the market for two years in Australia, we sold it three weeks ago but we have a Condo on the Gold Coast being built at this time and at this very time, I have nowhere to go till September. So I will just sit in our small village and sit things out and hopeful not get sick.

I am just worried about the fact we have no welfare here in Thailand and if this drags one for too long, we may have desperate people. Most people in my area live either on pay check to pay check or many of the poor, day to day on selling at the local markets. It all will depend if this goes exponential. The numbers are starting to point to this and if fear creeps in, I do not know how this could end. Just looking at Italy and Spain and seeing how we let the hoards of Chinese Tourist in during January, I cannot see how Thailand cannot miss being hit hard. 

Either way, I think this is going to be messy, so I have enough food for a few weeks, cash on hand and will lay low in my village. Everyone knows me here and I have never had a issue with anyone. I did think to go home to Australia with my wife three weeks ago when the sale of the house was finalized but I love my wife's parents very much and they just live day to day. They both have medical issues and are not young. If anything goes wrong here, they are going to need looking after.

So as you can see, if you do have family here, going back home to your home country has many variables. My variables were more so on the side I would be most likely better off here due to the fact I have good family and a house in a small safe village. I am lucky that my health insurance covers covid-19, so that took a lot of pressure off me. My wife is also covered.

Best of luck to everyone. The following weeks I fear at going to be very stressful but like a passing storm, this time will pass but I think the world has changed and things for maybe a long time, will not be the same. Even maybe not the same ever. I suppose I am a bit of an alarmist but I spent a long time working in China and saw the live markets. I believe something nasty could have come from them and I believe we don't know half the story about what really went on in China. Only China could pull off such a effective lock down and I fear other places in our world have not taken this seriously enough and may pay with a high price.

The only way this will end is in tears for a lot of people. I read a report tonight on projected numbers here in Thailand that was pretty scary.

If nothing is done now, like a lock down of certain areas, these figures may come true. Telling people to just stay at home is not going to work. The cat is out the bag and I think only tough measures in the future are going to be able to restrain things to a manageable degree.  

Just letting in the Chinese willy nilly like they did was just a recipe for disaster. If China did not lock down the Tour Groups coming in, they would have still been arriving. Just plain Greed. If this blows out exponentially the hospitals are going to be crushed. Biggest problem is most Thais are not ready for a rather long lock down. Nearly all my Thai friends have only limited funds on hand and need to work. I understand they want everyone still working and being able to survive, but if this does blow out of control it is going to take much longer to recover if the hard yards are not done now.

I might be wrong. We all might be wrong but I look at China, Italy and Spain and it does not garish me much hope. They have had to do hard yards. My home country Australia has just closed it's borders. The financial loss for us Aussies is just going to be telling for years to come. What it is telling me if Australia is going to such extremes to limit the curve, they must know something we don't know.

My family and I will self isolate here in Thailand for the time being. If I am wrong, it is only a month or two and we will see a clearer picture. Until then, I will take note of what the professionals are saying and lay low. Got lots of Television shows I have been putting off for years to watch.