Monomial

May 17, 2020

3 hours ago, Yinn said:

Important thing is win corona= normal life again.

Please work together.

Why don't you work together to open the borders?

You can not "win" corona. Corona is here and is just a fact of life like every other disease.

Important thing is for everyone of working age to get the virus and recover, thereby developing antibodies. Only then can we have a normal life. And that will come a lot faster if we stop these stupid lockdown rules and open the borders back up.

This "win corona" religion has got to stop before the entire world is driven into abject poverty. You are free to be a hermit and cower in a corner if you want. That is your choice. I will not be signing up to your dogma however.

May 15, 2020

3 hours ago, stephenterry said:

Agree with your post, and I would point out, IMO, that the highlighted sentence is probably incorrect in that it should read no identified underlying health reasons - which only an autopsy would reveal.

It's a truism that most of the population of the USA consumes an obese causing SAD diet which is probably the unhealthiest on the planet. Scientific fact. The risk of mortality from heart attacks, stroke and cancers are extremely high, but only are identified when the sufferer experiences illness. That could take decades - and such people are therefore more vulnerable to the Covid19 virus.

Can we please not go back into rehashing this argument, which has been done to death and achieves nothing? At this point, there are 2 groups of people.

The realists: accept that the virus is simply a new part of the landscape of the Earth. There is nothing we can do about its existence. We can not change a force of nature. We can only live with it and accept that it will eventually go away on its own or mutate. Either way, the only variable we can control that makes any difference to the ultimate death toll is whether or not we have adequate health resources to handle the sick and dying. The vast majority will contract it and either recover or die. Everyone hopes to be the former, and each individual is free to choose the level of protection he wishes to apply in his own life.

The denialists: still believe it is possible to rein in this virus. That by destroying the economy and what makes us human through lockdowns and contact tracing we can stop the virus artificially. Like the 5 stages of grief, they don't yet accept the nature of Covid as an inescapable reality upon the fabric of our lives.

Depending on which group you belong to, you are going to selectively listen to information and statistics which support your belief. So further discussion on statistics of vulnerability is essentially pointless. If you are a realist you have already accepted everyone will get the virus, percentages are irrelevant. When you do get it, you are the only data point that matters. As long as there are medical resources available for you (and everyone else), then the optimum has been achieved.

For the denialist, he still wants to pull others to his world view. He wants to quote the worst numbers he can find to scare others into accepting his beliefs about this virus. He doesn't accept that nature already defeated us and that artificial containment has failed. He needs continuing social proof that there is hope, and tries to frame this fight as a moral imperative.

Your discussion of diet is an argument that exists completely orthogonal to all of this nonsense. People in both categories above can accept that the diet we have right now is not particularly healthy. But it doesn't add anything useful to the discussion of the virus.

We don't need a plan for this pandemic. The pandemic arrived all on its own. We need a plan for maintaining our humanity.

May 14, 2020

3 hours ago, chessman said:

Then you are burying your head in the sand.

remember - just because you disagree with the lockdown, that doesn’t automatically mean that people are inflating the deaths.

read this

https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c

This one has a coherent argument rather than the conjecture from the newspaper link you provided.

Why does everyone keep worrying about the death toll? It is going to be whatever it is going to be. The only thing that matters is whether or not the hospital services are overwhelmed. If they are not, then we need to keep opening up. Open the stores, open the borders. Everyone needs to get this virus to reach herd immunity. We can not lock down and avoid it. Some people continue to think that is a realistic policy. It's not.

The virus is here. We won't have a vaccine in a realistic timeframe. Everyone of working age needs to catch this thing to develop immunity or nobody will be working. Some people will die, and that sucks. But the only variable we have control over is the amount of health services available. Since that is all we can control, that is what we need to concentrate on.

Impose restrictions only if the hospitals are overwhelmed. Beyond that, let everyone do whatever they are going to do. If you want to stay inside and cower, do it. Nobody is stopping you. But I want to work to feed my family. And when I get the disease, I will either pull through or I won't. That is all that is important to me. I don't care what the ultimate death toll is. It is totally irrelevant to everything in my life. I can die even if the death toll is exactly 1, assuming I'm that unlucky one. Statistics don't matter. The virus is simply an integral part of life that needs to be accepted at this point.

I know I need to catch this thing. I can't wish it away, and I don't accept that a lockdown is morally acceptable as long as we have free hospital beds. You are, of course, free to have your own opinion and try to avoid the disease by becoming a hermit. Eventually, there will be enough of us immune that your strategy may work. But you will be hiding away for at least a year. I don't have that luxury.

May 14, 2020

No income for the foreseeable future. Not paying the mortgage right now, and the bank has decided not to press for 3 months. No idea what is going to happen at the end of that period. I need the borders to reopen without quarantines in order to start earning again.

Out of cash and no idea how I will make the 400k for the next extension of stay. Will likely be forced out of the country after 20+ years living here. Can't take the family as we have nowhere to go. I will be forcibly separated from my family until I can somehow reestablish a life somewhere else.

No. These ill conceived global shutdowns championed by the WHO have taken everything from me and left me essentially bankrupt. I won't be riding anything out. Those of you who are retired with guranteed income and have been the beneficiaries of this virus should remember those of us who had our lives destroyed for your benefit.

May 13, 2020

18 hours ago, Just1Voice said:

My wife has a cousin who is HEAD of Nursing in a major hospital here in Chiang Mai, and told my wife that staff were ORDERED, under penalty of being fired, to put down ANYTHING except Covid as cause of death. That's why I never believe the governments "death figures"

I'm actually very comforted by this fact if it is true. Sounds like a face saving way to continue. Everyone has to get this disease so we can achieve herd immunity. We need it to spread to everyone of working age, who are at minimal risk of death. This gives me hope it is still moving throughout the population, and that the "second wave" will be contained as far as official figures are concerned.

In practice, as long as the excess deaths and those with "pneumonia" don't overwhelm the available health services, then we will have found an optimal solution. Removing the lockdowns should spread the disease as quickly as possible to as many as possible. Just need to guarantee that everyone who needs a hospital has access to one. This is what "flatten the curve" was supposed to mean. Not zero infections. This is a way to make one equal the other while avoiding the drama.

Personally, I question whether this is genuinely an officially "unofficial" government policy because I have not heard similar statements from others in similar positions. But if it is true, it is a good way forward as long as the fiction can be maintained.

May 10, 2020

One thing I just thought of with regard to the above.

*IF* you can resell the item, then you should be able to use the same system I discuss for repair of the item. I do not believe the item needs to ship back to the same person who sent it to you. When you resell to someone else, you should be able to claim back your deposit.

Next time this happens, explain to DHL that this is only a temporary import, and that you will be reexporting the item again. You need to make sure there is a unique serial number on every item you ship in order for this to work. But the mechanism *IS* in the law. You just need to push until they allow you to do it. It is a bunch of work for you and for them, so there will likely be resistance to the process, but the regulation does exist.

May 10, 2020

There is a mechanism I am aware of if you are repairing the device.

You need to record and take pictures of the serial number, then pay a deposit on the incoming item. When you reexport the repaired items, customs should refund the deposit after verifying the same item left that came in. I have actually done this a few times via Thailand Post. Needed to go to the customs office down by Hua Lampong and it took most of an afternoon, but it did work. I got my deposit back in the form of a check after about 3 months.

The problem is that doesn't help if the customer is returning the item because they don't want to pay import duties. In order to avoid import duties in this case, I would expect that when you export the item you would need to declare it as a "temporary export" and then there is probably similar paperwork to allows you to reimport. Again, it would almost certainly require pictures and recording of the serial numbers.

Basically the same regulation they were talking about at the airports a few months back for export and reimport of personal items. The issue there is that, assuming the customer actually keeps the item, I can imagine you will be unable to claim a VAT refund.

Seems the only good way around the issue would be a bonded warehouse where you keep manufactured items for export only. You would need to be the manufacture for that to work, or else buy from the manufacturer's bonded warehouse directly into your bonded warehouse. Once it enters Thailand, you can't get it back into the bonded system.

May 10, 2020

4 minutes ago, johnnybangkok said:

God, where to start.

'Nobody is killing anybody, willingly or otherwise. Only the virus kills people.'- the equivalent of saying a drunk driver doesn't kill people; the car does.

'The issue is simply whether or not people get a choice to decide shelter in place or live their normal lives accept the reality of the virus.' - yeah because giving people independent choice in a pandemic is always a good idea. Do you think people were given a 'choice' about whether to keep their lights on during the blitz or whether someone can go out during a tornedo? The good of the masses outweighs the needs of the individaul. that's what living in society entails.

'Only if there is a clear and immediate threat to overwhelming the health services can these kinds of lockdowns be justified.' - that is literally why this was all done. If it wasn't for the lockdown you can be gauranteed health services would have been overwhelmed.

The issue with your whole post is if it was all about damaging just yourself then I'd agree; if you want to be stupid then fill your boots but that's not the case is it? Your 'choice' to go about your life as if nothing is happening effects others and all it takes is one or two super-spreaders and large amounts of people who didn't need to die, have shuffled off their mortal coil through no fault of their own.

And to say 'It just isn't a serious problem for those under 60' negates the fact that 2% of deaths are under the age of 60. Out of the 280,000 C19 deaths (so far) that's 5,600 including a growing number of 30-40 years who are dying of strokes https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/24/strokes-coronavirus-young-patients. Are you willing to risk your son/daughter/grandchildren

Look, I agree there needs to come a time when things start opening up (my own business is really suffering) and it makes absolute sense that those at most risk are shielded from immediate harm BUT this should have been done at the beginning of the outbreak when there was a chance to contain things but through the general incompetance and denial of many world governments (don't get me started on that) this did not happen so we can either cry over the spilled milk or try and mitigate the consequences of their actions.

The economy will open up again; people will get back to work and the world will eventually return to some form of normality. But for that to NOT involve mass deaths then it has to be regulated, structured and phased in because as they say, you'll recover from having no money but there's no coming back from being dead.

You are entitled to your value choices, and I am entitled to mine. You are NOT entitled to force your values onto me. Do you hear yourself? "2% of deaths are under the age of 60." Exactly. *ONLY* 2%. I'll even give you as high as 5% of deaths.

I am quite willing to accept that risk in order not to have my life destroyed by the economic evisceration being forced upon me. I accept a chance I will die every day when I drive on the roads. And as long as I don't overwhelm the health services with my judgements, I am not in any way affecting your life.

You are the one who is unwilling to accept that people do not share your value system.

May 10, 2020

14 minutes ago, johnnybangkok said:

Killing vulnerable people willingly to get deaths out of the way faster, achieve herd immunity and to open up the economy is not a battle of 'good versus evil'. It's common sense against eugenics.

Strawman argument. You've listened to too much indoctrination.

Nobody is killing anybody, willingly or otherwise. Only the virus kills people.

The issue is simply whether or not people get a choice to decide shelter in place or live their normal lives accept the reality of the virus. If you want to shelter in place and try and wait out the virus more power to you. I would even agree to government assistance to try and help those who want to take this approach and can't afford to. Would be a heck of a lot cheaper than what we have done.

But I object to people who are at almost no risk of dying from being forced into abject poverty, separated from their families, and all the other horrors being inflicted on the population because a specific group is at risk of dying from this. It just isn't a serious problem for those under 60. Help those who need it, but give everyone a choice how they want to handle the risk of infection in their personal lives. Only if there is a clear and immediate threat to overwhelming the health services can these kinds of lockdowns be justified. And there is no threat of that currently. Zero infections is not an acceptable value judgement by politicians or health services organizations given the massive amount of pain and suffering the restrictions cause.

May 10, 2020

23 hours ago, Captain Monday said:

International Air Cargo has been operating without restriction for the duration of the covid crisis to most countries including Thailand. Connie Kalitta's outfit are operating 777s contracted to DHL are en route to SYD as we speak. My friends at NCA landed in BKK this morning, from Singapore. In fact air cargo is increasing and passenger airlines are flying planes on a large scale with cargo only and no passengers. This is unprecedented in my career. If you want to send a letter forget Thailand Post and choose a courier company like DHL, FEDEX or UPS. "Simples".

Are these flights being operated part 121 or part 135?

As I understand it, by treaty airmail has to be delivered by a part 121 carrier flight. Only courier services like FedEx/DHL can use 135.

May 10, 2020

Thailand Post has never negotiated a surface mail treaty with Australia. They are not going to do it just for this crisis either. Unless there is enough continuing business to justify surface mail once this pandemic is over, they are not going to negotiate new treaties for a temporary problem.

Normal airmail/SAL services to Australia will resume once international passenger travel resumes on a regular basis between Australia and Thailand . And there have to be enough scheduled commercial passenger flights to accomodate the expected volume of mail that will be generated.

So expect mail to Australia to be suspended for a long time.

BTW: Cargo and charter flights do not count. Mail is delivered on regularly scheduled passenger airlines. Regularly scheduled and meeting all required security requirements are the key.

May 10, 2020

On 5/7/2020 at 8:01 PM, bwpage3 said:

What kind of high yield does $12,500 get you in a US Savings Account these days?

US specifically or USD in general?

3.5% for USD @ ABA Cambodia. Not going under unless the Canadian parent fails as well.

Better than anything in Thailand

May 9, 2020

20 hours ago, bodga said:

Where?

10% - 20% is possibly a realistic figure if we restrict ourselves to only considering nursing homes with patients over 80 years of age, and then further restrict ourselves to only looking at those cases which present with serious symptoms requiring hospitalization.

In any normal population under 60, such percentages are absurd and off by several orders of magnitude. But don't ever let a politician be held hostage to actual facts.

May 9, 2020

A new report that will be published in the upcoming edition of Genetics and Evolution.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3083211/coronavirus-may-have-jumped-humans-early-october-study-says

Researchers from University College London and the University of Reunion Island analysed more than 7,000 genomes collected from around the world. By looking at the mutations in the virus, they determined the virus jumped from its initial host to humans at some point between October 6 and December 11.

While the December 11 date has never been controversial, pushing the origin back to as early as the beginning of October lends support to the hypothesis that the virus that began spreading through Thailand in early to mid November was in fact the new corona virus, and that a big reason why Thailand's numbers have been so low is because the peak of the infection passed long before anyone even knew to look for it.

The hypothesis can be tested if anyone can get a hold of raw, monthly mortality figures for Thailand including late 2019 and January 2020. The pattern of deaths should be noticeably skewed from earlier years where no virus was present if the speculation is correct.

The early October date as a genesis is given additional credibility by the report of a French athletic team who attended the Wuhan games in October and who came down with an unknown respiratory illness after returning. Frozen tissue samples from a patient show the virus was definitely in France by December, and a vector of returning athletes in October would be consistent with that.

May 9, 2020

According to the Nation Thailand, the central bank has changed the way interest is calculated on mortgages. I can't for the life of me follow what they are trying to say in the May 09 article titled "New interest rule introduced to relieve load on borrowers, cut NPLs":

https://www.nationthailand.com/business/30387535

Can anyone who speaks and understands Thai logic please explain to me in conventional mathematical terms what it is they are trying to say here? What is it they actually changed? An example would be helpful. Mortgage interest calculations are very simple by nature. There is a principle due. There is an interest rate. You calculate interest based on the outstanding principle using the interest rate. You make a payment, the principle reduces, and the interest goes down. Simple.

What on earth does "if the borrower failed to pay the 25th instalment, the bank would charge interest on both the 25th instalment as well as the remaining 215 instalments". Only a Thai could possibly make sense of that statement. Why are you paying interest on installments, themselves which are already mostly interest, and which by definition are variable because the interest rate varies???

Bafflled and in need of someone who can translate nonsense...

May 8, 2020

19 hours ago, DrTuner said:

It's likely the infection rate in Thailand was was very high in December-February, but went unnoticed because they got an earlier strain.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054v2.full.pdf

You can categorize that under "dumb luck", nothing to do with Thailand's fumbling early efforts.

So a couple of questions that immediately come to mind reading that paper. First, they mention that only in Iceland the D614 variant outperformed the G614 mutation. Why? What is special about the environment or population of Iceland, and could investigations along this line yield some clues about how to take advantage of this?

Second, and more interesting question, is if the G614 variant is more easily transmitted, meaning a higher R value, then the ultimate percentage of a population that needs to become infected in order to confer herd immunity is increased. Thus, while Asian countries may have reached a point that the D614 variant already has an effective R of less than 1 in the population, it may still be that the more virulent G614 variant, if released into the population, could find enough without immunity to cause a new bump in cases until the "recovered" population increases further to dampen the R on the new strain.

This could also be a primary contributor to the very interesting "left coast"/"east coast" phenomenon that occurred in the USA. If true that the D614 variant was introduced to areas like Seattle back in November as speculated, it would explain why there was a brief surge in infections there in March/April, but it seemed to die out quickly. That surge would have been the more virulent G614 variant picking off more people than the earlier D614 variant. But overall the problem was quickly extinguished in certain communities that were already mostly immune from the previous strain. It just needed a slight push to get the immunity a bit higher.

Thailand would presumably be in this same category. We'd see a brief spike but nothing that would overwhelm the medical capabilities. And it basically means we still have this to look forward to. Oh joy...I can just imagine what Prayut is going to do this time.

Either way though, I think the biggest advantage Thailand received during this pandemic is that the disease spread through the population long before anyone started looking for it. If that hypothesis is correct, it should show up in the total reported deaths during the months of November, December 2019 and January 2020. The monthly distribution of deaths for this period should show a distinctly different profile from the monthly death profile in previous years. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find data for total mortality rates in Thailand for any year after 2017.

So it would seem this is all stil speculation for the moment.

May 8, 2020

9 hours ago, Sheryl said:

Makes no sense as the only blood tests I am aware iof detect antibodies. So people with active disease, if still ealry stages, will be negative and perfectly healthy people who had and fully recovered from COVID will test positive.

I think that is the whole idea Sheryl. Only those with positive IgG/IgM antibody tests (or presumably have been vaccinated when/if that is ever a possibility) are going to be allowed to fly.

That is the whole idea behind the new "health passport" scheme that so many people are complaining about. It will create 2 tiers of humans. Those that have immunity and are allowed to travel, and those that are not yet immune and are locked down.

May 8, 2020

On 5/1/2020 at 7:41 PM, Road Warrior said:

any body know when postal service resumes via air mail???????

I spoke with the Thailand Post head office. It is not going to resume until there is sufficient international passenger air travel between the countries so that they can be reliably certain of regular and dependable availability on passenger flights in sufficient volume. I would guess the earliest that could happen is sometime in Q4. I will be shocked (but ecstatic) if SAL/airmail resumes before October.

May 8, 2020

On 5/1/2020 at 8:50 PM, samtab said:

Very slow to EU because no airmail available, only surface (by boat maybe ?)

Not all EU countries. Mail is only available to:

Belgium
Denmark
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland

Plus, of course, the not yet fully Brexited, UK.

Try mailing to any other EU country and you'll be told to go pound sand.

Also, signature on delivery is not available to Germany at the moment.

May 8, 2020

On 4/30/2020 at 5:48 PM, Crossy said:

Surface only at present, 3 months or so.

It's not really 3 months. The post office is being overly pessimistic so you don't complain.

It *could* be 3 months in rare situations. In practice it is about 6-7 weeks. This problem is actually not unprecedented. During the holiday season when there are not enough planes flying to handle the volume of mail, overflow from normal SAL services sometimes gets sent by ship. We have to handle angry customer complaints all the time during October/November when customers start worrying their packages got lost, so have a lot of experience in this regard. Never actually seen something shipped by boat take more than 8 weeks to arrive in the UK. The 6-7 week time frame by surface to the UK is well established. Like reading an electronics data sheet. Assume 3 months worst case, but 7 weeks as a typical value.

But if there is no volume going to the UK and they have to wait to fill a container, then you could be in for a delay.

May 6, 2020

25 minutes ago, timendres said:

I have spoken directly with three people I know in the US who were forced from their jobs. All three said they hoped the lockdown lasted forever, because they are receiving more money from their unemployment benefits than they earned from their jobs. I would like to know the poll results if it included an equal number of people who were losing their home, business, or life savings.

There are actually many people who realize their life sucked before the lockdown, and are enjoying the change. Talked to an old friend the other day who says he is having a blast working from home. Hopes they never restart the economy. I don't know a single person who is saying "continue the lockdown" and is saying it because they care about lives. I do know a few retirees (who have guaranteed income) and love the lockdown because the traffic is so much better though.

On the other hand, those people who are against it have that conviction because their lives are genuinely being destroyed. Both myself and my wife are out of work. We have zero income right now. My wife can't make money without the return of global international postal services. I can't make money until I am able to cross regional borders freely for day trips. I'm going to be forcibly separated from my family once my current EOS expires because I can't come up with the 400k this year. Doesn't take a genius to imagine that when faced with my life being destroyed, I'm not going to be too happy about it, and don't think highly of the moral sewers who celebrate my suffering just so they can enjoy a walk with a few less cars on the street.

I have very little respect for those supporting this lockdown, because I know that saving lives is not on their selfish list of reasons for promoting this economic evisceration. All this opinion poll proves is slightly more than half are having more fun now did than they did working before. Has nothing to do with health, and is not a reason to continue to watch millions starve and suffer under this economic stupidity.

May 6, 2020

Interesting article suggesting this was possibly spreading as early as October:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1278723/France-coronavirus-october-athletes-covid19-symptoms-wuhan-china-who

May 6, 2020

3 hours ago, Pravda said:

I got sick end of November 2019, and I got better for about a week than got sick again.....

I am curious how many members here were sick around that time?

Me. Mid November. Horrible bout of coughing the likes I have never had. Spent several nights on the sofa because I didn't want to annoy the family trying to sleep. Was delerious for about a day. (Oxygen deprivation...another recently discovered feature of Covid-19) No fever, but had the chills. It eventually passed, but I thought it was one of the most brutal colds I had ever contracted.

No way to know for sure, but I suspect that it may have been Corona. If so, it means it was circulating through Thailand in early November, long before they even officially recognized it.

And this is why I think Thailand has done so well with their infections. The country may already have herd immunity, especially as it appears that 50% or more of infections are asymptomatic.

May 6, 2020

2 hours ago, Bob A Kneale said:

But, unfortunately, that's not the case; in these circumstances the affected staff are not entitled to severance pay. Labour laws cover "force majeure" situations specifically.

A. This isn't force majure. This is a conscious decision by the director to close the hotel when there are other options available to them. This is cruelty by management and owners trying to worm their way out of their legal responsibilities by exploiting a technicality.

B. Even if this is ultimately ruled force majure by a court, it is still a downright nasty thing to do. Just because it is legal doesn't mean it is moral.

The investors should pay for this shutdown. They are in a position to do it. Not the workers.

This was the very first hotel I ever stayed at in Thailand. I still recommend it to my friends when they come. Never again after this downright immoral, ugly action by a hotel and a director that has the morals of a pig.

May 5, 2020

Quote

LABOUR PROTECTION ACT B.E. 2541 (1998)

Section 75

Whereas it is necessary for an Employer to temporarily suspend business, in part or in whole, for whatever cause other than a force majeure, the Employer shall pay to an Employee not less than fifty percent of the Wages of a Working Day received by the Employee before the suspension of business throughout the period which the Employer does not require the Employee to work.

The employer shall inform the Employee and a Labor Inspector in advance before the commencement of the suspension of business under paragraph one.

So they should be entitled to 50% of salary during this period. The article is not clear on whether the hotel is following this law or not.

Of course, the hotel may be trying to claim this is "force majeure". If they tried that on me I would immediately be filing suit at the Labour Court. Nothing is making them close. They simply don't have any customers and don't want to try and find ways of reframing their business to get customers.

Sucks to be the hotel, but they are a multinational chain with deep pockets. I'm sure they could bear the cost of 50% of salaries for 3 months, and I bet the Labour Court will agree.

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LABOUR PROTECTION ACT B.E. 2541 (1998)

Section 75