Dutyfirst

4 hours ago, James105 said:

 

Well I am one of those 53 so I would much prefer this than renewing the pricy elite visa that gives me the same rights as any other tourist, so a longer visa that gives me some property rights is quite appealing.    Like anything with visas here though, I have little doubt that the end result of this will be something as complicated and convoluted as the smart visa by the time it comes out the other side - if it even gets there.   

I would assume that you would have to pay income tax in Thailand based on the 80k USD minimum per year. If you calculate that you would probably find that the elite visa is quite a lot better value

5 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

That coupled to the thousands that cannot afford it!

In terms of loss of income.. for sure! But in terms of the hospital quarantine and treatment is covered by the govt. 

1 hour ago, Enzian said:

Look at a map; Bangladesh is totally on the other side of Burma from Thailand, so their plight could not have anything to do with Thailand unless Thailand were to have joined with other nations to directly confront the issue. And unless I missed something, the rest of the world did nothing in effect. And there is also the problem, which isn't talked about much, that Suu Kyi herself agreed (silently) with the generals that the Rohingya didn't belong in Burma, and there was and is almost zero support among ordinary Burmese for them. I'm not saying any of this is right, but that it is the reality. 

Thailand has an appalling record when it comes to Rohinga refugees fleeing Burma by boat trying to find asylum in Thailand.  Everything from forcing them back out to see without food or water or the Navy shooting them. There was also a mass grave of Rohinga refugees discovered down south. 

So i would say Thailand pretty much failed at human rights in these cases.  

1 minute ago, Misterwhisper said:

Does it matter? It's 745 new cases in a single day. Period.

Context does matter. These 500 or more migrant cases were backlogged cases from testing all spread over a number of days of the migrant camps around the initial outbreak.  A spread amongst a highly crowded migrant camp who have sadly  been locked in by barbed wire is a lot different than wide spread local transmission.  

17 minutes ago, Petey11 said:

152 were local transmission, 745 were local transmission, the migrants didn't arrive yesterday, this migrant theme has been running for well over 3 weeks now.

Over the weekend i saw a Thai news report with one of Thailand's infectious disease specialists saying that as of monday they were releasing the 500 or so positive figures for the migrant workers. They mentioned this delayed reporting because of the time it took to process the 1000's of suspected/at risk cases in the migrant camps and they wanted to collate all the data once all those tests had been finalized. 

I see the govt setting a no vaccine no visa/extension policy in the future maybe

Long term "tourists" like the person who wrote this letter are not the govt's focus as much as many of your would like it to be. These type of "tourists" are not going to save the tourism industry. Staying in private apartments, eating at local restaurants and drinking 60 baht beers from 7/11 you arnt injecting tourism dollars into the economy. You are essentially no different to a local, actually i would argue the growing upper middle Thai class are contributing way more to the economy than your average long term tourist or retiree. 

The govt is concerned about short stay tourists. The ones that are coming and staying in actual hotels, eating at tourist focused restaurants, going on tours, buying souvenirs and dropping loads amount of money in a short period of time.  

The govt is kinda stuffed if they do and stuffed if they dont. It is not an easy situation to handle. They allows tourists back and covid makes a rears its head again they will have the general population up in arms wanting their head. If they dont do anything they have the tourism sector protesting at their doors. I understand what they are trying to achieve here even though its probably not the greatest of ideas but i guess it at least shows they are making some attempt. 

In regards to some of the comments about long stay tourists or expats being forgotten. These types of tourists are not what is going to save the tourist industry. Some foreigner renting a private apartment on a monthly basis eating at local restaurants and drinking at a local bar isnt their focus. Its the short stay tourists that are staying in hotels, eating in restaurants targeted at tourists who are also going on day tours, diving and all that stuff most long term stayers arnt interested in doing and spending money on souvenirs and duty free.

 

15 hours ago, tomacht8 said:

That is not true.

Seasonal flu kills 291,000 to 646,000 people worldwide each year, according to a new estimate that's higher than the previous one of 250,000 to 500,000 deaths a year. 

Source: https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=208914

 

C19 death worldwide all together around 350.000 (stat. Date 26. May 2020)

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1093256/novel-coronavirus-2019ncov-deaths-worldwide-by-country/

 

The general statement: "There are many many more deaths with covid-19 than flu." is scientifically unsustainable.

 

A couple of points that need to be noted.  We are only 5 months into the year and are already over 350,000  and dont forget to take into account the majority of countries taking various lockdown measures to flatten this curve that also doesnt happen for the yearly flu.  

1 hour ago, Lifeon said:

came back from Vietnam in Late Jan also, it was also starting to kick off about the COVID. My lad had been admitted to hospital (8 yo), 40 deg fever, sat him on his ass, collapsed, rushed to hospital etc. all in 24 hrs he went downhill at a fast rate of knots. I went straight to hospital after arriving back. I took the opportunity to look at his chart. Had written "influenza detected" and the line under neath "influenza New Detected"....2 days later on was sat on my ass, hot and cold fevers, extreme muscle pain, headache, after 1-2 days went to the hospital as was in a bad way...given a bucket load of drugs..hand full a day just to function...came good after 48 hours...soldiering on. I reckon the young fella got a dose then i got maybe mild symptoms from him. I didn't have a cough..well not dry cough like they say but wasn't feeling the best. But I dont take a lot medicines and ride most storms out with flues and colds so hopefully my immune system is where it needs to be. I got that other one on 2012 or around then, thought I was going to die..lungs were just full of <deleted> and couldnt breath..pulled through that one..It was real bad what ever I caught.Im thinking this COVID is probably worse though.

If your chart saud positive for influenza then your blood test shows you had contracted the influenza virus and this is what you had.

1 hour ago, Robert Tyrrell said:

Hello,

 

This percentage rate of 0.97 % is VERY FALSE !! For 3 Reasons.

 

1. The amount of people STILL NOT !! Tested in Thailand, Just like many places in the World.

 

2. Asymptomatic Carriers of Covid-19 showing no visible signs of the Virus and are carriers still spreading the virus !! 

3. These issues will adjust a much higher percentage after the Apex has been reached , Deaths will rise significantly !!

Your logic is flawed. Currently only the very ill are being tested and those with milder cases and the asymptomatic cases your mentioned most likely arnt being tested. If there were tested you indeed would see the number of cases rise but you would see the death rate lower.

There have been reports from Iceland who have the highest per capita testing of citizens including those who dont have symptoms at all. It show's that 40 percent of people who test positive dont display symptoms at all. This is inline with the mandatory testing on the japanese cruise ship that also showed similar statistics. This means that the current reported number of cases is far higher across the world but that forces down the fatality rate considerably. 

I am hoping that the heat and humidity is indeed a factor. Alot of posters are screaming here that Thailand are misreporting figures but if that is the case does that mean Singapore, Malaysia and other hot humid countries are also hiding their figures?  Go look at reports of current situation in the hospitals in NYC and Italy.  There are literally lines of sick people outside of hospitals. They have run out of ventilators. They have sick people overflowing in corridors. Nurses and doctors saying it looks like a war zone? So where are these people in Thailand? I used to help manage a foundation that gave nursing scholarships to Thai students which many of whom are now working in numerous hospitals both govt and private and the ones ive reached out to all say that they havnt seen some crazy surge in critically sick people.  Alot of them most of their negative pressure rooms arnt even being used. 

 

Judging back the bed and room style this guy is most likely in a private hospital being treated and not a govt hospital. This is why the bill is 100k baht. 

5 minutes ago, Timwin said:

This is further proof the R0 is much lower in tropical countries. It is not spreading as effectively as in countries now with temperatures below 10 C. In northern countries the # of cases mushroomed from few tens to their daily testing capacity maximum within one week or so. Thailand has slow climb and still foreigners in the mix.

https://reason.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-epidemic-may-be-slowed-by-warm-and-humid-weather/

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767

1 minute ago, gjoo888 said:

According to my wife, the government hospitals charge 2500 Baht for a test for the virus. If that is indeed the case, expect the virus to multiply greatly. Many, many millions of Thais can't afford that. The government needs to appropriate funds to test whoever might need it. Without the funding, Thailand is in big trouble, and so are we.

This is incorrect. There is no surcharge. This kind of misinformation is what will keep Thai's from going to hospitals. The test is 100 percent free of charge if suspected of being infected.

4 hours ago, mngmn said:

Current infection stats from John Hopkins webs site:

- Singapore 138

- Malaysia 93

- Thailand 50

 

International arrivals:

- Thailand 38 million

- Malaysia 25 million

- Singapore 14 million

 

So if imported cases dominate in hot climates we would still expect Thailand to have more cases than Singapore and Malaysia.  So why is the opposite the case?

 

With a puny 8.5 million visitors and a climate hotter than Thailand's why does Australia have 76 cases?

 

Perhaps more important - why be an apologist for the obvious lying of dysfunctional Government?

I am not being an apologist, did i say that Thailand's numbers were perfect? I try and break things down as logically as possible. If neighboring countries with similar climates were reporting massive explosions in cases like Italy, Iran and Sth Korea in the 1000's and Thailand was still claiming they only had 50. Sure i would be screaming foul. But the fact that the total across SE Asia arnt grossly different and low compared to countries with low temps. There are more than likely cases being missed or not diagnosed but i highly doubt its in the 1000's like other members here are stating. If that were the case you would see similar reports from Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

Also for Australia, the majority of cases have not been local with some local spread in a nursing home and some other random local transmissions. Your claim that Australia's climate is hotter than Thailand is only true for mid summer months. Coming from Sydney myself if you look at the temps the last couple of weeks its been in the low 20's and colder at night and is only going to get colder going forward.  Australia is coming into our flu season so things are probably only going to get worse. But dont be alarmed aussies have armed themselves with enough toilet paper to survive the next ice age ????
   

3 minutes ago, mngmn said:

Singapore? Malaysia? Maybe those countries are lying about the numbers being much bigger than they really are.

 

So Thai to turn some random characteristic of Thailand into a virtue. Could equally be Some Tum, Paala, because country was never colonised or simply because 'Thailand number one'.

Singapore has 27 local cases which 20 of were one cluster in a local church from a total of 100 something cases. Malaysia has a similar number.  Both these countries first cases were back in January.   So when you compare this with Sth Korea and Italy and Iran who exploded above a 1000 in such a short period of time in comparison. Questions need to be asked is are Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore ect all lying about the numbers. Are is heat and humidity a large factor in viral spread

4 minutes ago, mngmn said:

Yes I forgot, Australia is freezing this time of year.

Point to note though. 50 of the cases in Australia has all recently been in Wuhan, China, Japan or Iran. Local "spread" is only around 18. Hardly a crazy explosion of cases like in Italy or Sth Korea

1 hour ago, DrJack54 said:

Clearly you have never been to Australia in Jan Feb and even March. Oz folk would come to Thailand for cool change.

70+ cases OZ population 25mill. Oz

far less tourists than Thailand. Australia has no land borders.

Thailand ~ 50 cases....Yeah right!

Covid-19 seems comfortable moving about in Italy right now. Hardly summer weather. Perhaps covid-19 is visa exempt.

Last month or so where alot of the cases in Aus are the weather has been quite cool. Melbourne and Canberra for example its hardly been blistering summer weather. 

13 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

Cute.

 

They want everyone to think they are globally connected companies.

 

How many people from Krungsri need to travel out of Thailand on business and how often?

 

Maybe they are talking about group shopping trips to Hong Kong and Japan.

My other half works at Kasikorn bank and they started to enforce this rule for all bank staff over 2 weeks.  For example, one of the ladies at the branch my girlfriend works at was meant to fly to japan for her annual holiday last week but was forced to cancel the trip even though everything was paid in full. 

On 3/5/2020 at 5:32 PM, humbug said:

already there are two mutations, one stronger than the other, hot countries, Kuwait, India, uae, Saudi, Malaysia, Bahrain all reporting spikes in cases, it’s how you test, if you test 30,000 people a day, you can find maybe 25% of cases, not many people will be isolated outside in the searing heat 24hrs a day, it’s not how the world lives, this is 2020 not 220 AD

A spike would be 100's of people, 10 people here and there is expected for such populated countries. Look at the colder countries like germany, US. sth korea and iran. Those are "spikes"

On 3/5/2020 at 12:59 PM, unsubscribe said:

I guess warm/hot weather isn't much of a deterrent if it's spreading in countries like India and Egypt.

 

India has a billion people and less cases than Thailand? Egypt has 14... hardly exploding like sth korea and iran