khunjeff

"New cases rose from Dec 13 because some visitors had not passed the Thailand Pass registration process or had not undergone RT-PCR tests. Some visitors had forged their RT-PCR test certificates or conducted only antigen tests." Sorry, I just don't believe that at all - in fact, it's insulting to people's intelligence. If you've flown to Thailand in recent months, you know that there just isn't any way to pass the check-in procedure of any airline without a Thailand Pass QR code and a PCR test result. None. So arrivals didn't go through TP registration, or showed up with only an antigen test? Not a chance. But is it possible that some people forged PCR results, or went to dishonest labs that didn't really test their samples? Sure, but it seems very unlikely that such people would make up more than a tiny fraction of incoming passengers - that scam has only a small upside, but a huge potential downside if detected.

It's an all-cargo flight using passenger aircraft. These have been common for many airlines throughout the pandemic.

This is just factually untrue. I stayed in numerous hotels over the last six months and was never asked to show a vaccination record. Three restaurants over that period required that I show proof of vaccination - dozens of others did not. So yes, the phenomenon did exist, but no, it wasn't common, and it certainly was never "difficult to enter" the average public place. This falls into the category of "I do my own research" - i.e., I watch quacks on YouTube, and then endanger my own health and that of people around me based on my own poor understanding of a subject I know nothing about.

So on what legal basis have they been fining people for behavior which doesn't violate the law? ????

Fine, I guess it's interesting as an indication that they may have been preparing for mayhem, but is there any law against having as many knives as you want, as long as you're not brandishing them or carrying them around in public?

He means they should investigate why someone was able to take photos without being appropriately dealt with...

Exactly. Whenever this issue comes up, there are always lots of posters here saying, "they should just let us join the social insurance system for 500 baht a month, problem solved". I understand that most of them come from countries with socialized medicine where they've never seen a medical bill and have no idea what health care actually costs, and good for them if that's the case. But realistically, the cost of unsubsidized coverage for a cohort of people, all over age 50, with a variety of pre-existing conditions, who have never paid into the system during their young and healthy years, will be high - shockingly high to those who imagine it can be done for 500 baht per month. It can certainly be done, but it would come at a very high price. Realistically, there isn't a major issue at all - the insurance requirement is a solution in search of a problem. Even if you believe all of the bleats about foreigners running away from medical bills - and I don't - the sum total of allegedly unpaid bills, for tourists and long-term residents alike, only came to something like $10M USD prior to Covid. (It should be noted that most of those bleats came from a single executive at a single hospital on a single island.) That amounted to about 10 baht per visitor, which the government wants to "solve" with a tax of 300 baht per visitor. Do the math. As others here have observed, you basically can't get expensive treatment in Thailand without pre-payment, a day by day top-up of your balance, or a guarantee from an insurer. The unpaid bills that we read or hear about typically result from either emergency treatment given after a terrible accident where medical ethics prevent denial of care, usually to a tourist (and often resulting from poor judgment involving motorbikes, jet skis, and the like) - or from end-of-life treatment given to an oldster who enters the hospital with enough money, but whose funds run out before he dies. Those cases are unfortunate, but are also rare. Unlike the impression given by the government and media here, foreigners do not frequently run out on bills, mostly because it's not really possible. More often, they just skip necessary treatment because they're afraid it will cost too much.

This was given to the police, not the military.

They absolutely expect you to leave your home and go stay at a hotel on day 5 - in fact, it's required, even for returning Thais. Does it make sense? No.

If you entered in October, you were using a COE, not Thailand Pass. With COE, yes, your insurance document was inspected on arrival. Under Thailand Pass, it isn't - at the arrival airport, they only look at your QR code and pre-flight PCR test result.

I'm pretty sure it's been two years, but at this point time is just a blur.

Yes, having a cute mascot is always the first step ???? At the zebra crossings near me, there are literally hundreds of violations every hour, even with pedestrian-operated traffic lights. On the rare occasions that police happen to be nearby, they pay absolutely no attention.

Evidently the terms "wide open" and "quarantine-free" have different meanings here than what I'm used to.

"Scheduled to open", though it's still very unclear whether any airlines are actually interested in flying there. Betong has always been a notoriously difficult place to travel to, partially due to geography, and partially as a result of deliberate efforts by past governments to contain the communist insurgents who used to be based there. It's much easier to get there from Malaysia than from Thailand, which is why, pre-Covid, most of the tourists in the area were Malaysian. I'm certainly in favor of this new airport in principle. But it remains to be seen whether it will make any financial sense, absent government subsidies.

Using credit cards, they are protected against fraud and can be reimbursed by the card issuer in cases like this. Had they paid by bank transfer - which is the other common option here - they would probably lose everything, unless some funds could be clawed back from the criminals.

"He also said that the deployment of AI technology is intended to ease burden on traffic police, so they don’t have to be stationed at the intersection to remind motorists and motorcyclists of the need for road discipline." I've never seen traffic police at that intersection outside of the air-conditioned control booth, and I've certainly never seen them "reminding" anyone about "road discipline", so there doesn't appear to be much of a burden to be eased.

When my Air Asia flight was cancelled in March 2020 (leaving me stranded in Vietnam - luckily Thai Airways was still flying and had seats available), I filed a claim with Traveloka, which had sold me the ticket, and Air Asia denied it, falsely stating that I had cancelled the flight myself ???? I then initiated a dispute with my credit card company, which immediately refunded the money. Traveloka never responded to them, so the charge was officially reversed. Months later, Traveloka informed me that Air Asia had revised its decision and authorized a refund, but the amount was tiny - probably just the checked baggage fee. Since I had already been made whole by my credit card by that point, though, I no longer cared.

The figure you're referring to was from the 2018 statistics published online by Immigration, which said that they processed 79,107 retirement extensions during that year. The numbers were only for extensions, not visas, so they presumably undercounted the total number of retirees in country. The numbers in the interview came from Immigration, which doesn't issue visas overseas, so I'm guessing that they were really referring to extensions, which are often incorrectly referred to (even by Immigration officers...) as "visas". (Immigration does issue in-country Non-O visas for retirees, but pretty much all of those turn into retirement extensions within 90 days.) You're right, it was all very vague. As I mentioned above, my guess is that the number was really for retirement extensions only, since that's what Immigration normally counts, but that's just a guess.

In reality, they currently attract fines of zero baht. I have never seen or heard of anyone being fined for a zebra crossing violation, and the only fines for speeding and going through red lights come from automated cameras, not traffic police. That's true in many cases, but even when the crossings have traffic lights - and timers counting down to the red light that can be seen easily from over 100m away - drivers just ignore the lights, and even ignore the pedestrians who are in the crossing. They will just keep pushing their way through a crowd of people unless someone physically blocks the vehicle and bangs on the hood.

That happens to me even with True 4G, but fortunately not often and not for very long each time.

From the article: "The DLT said that motorists still need a physical license in order to be able to legally drive in Thailand but can use the digital version as a means of ID." So in other words, motorists can only leave the physical card at home if they don't plan to do any motoring... Thanks for the clickbait ????

Do these "cutting edge" "modern technologies" include observing thick black smoke belching from city buses and then removing those buses from service? Didn't think so.

Not sure I understand this. It's not a dangerous drug unless it's imported?

As long as we're making up numbers, let's say they're losing quadrillions instead.