placnx

7 hours ago, jonclark said:

Well lets just hope that Covid doesn't turn out to be one of those pesky influenza type viruses that rapidly evolves and mutates, so that a new vaccine is required every year, otherwise this proposal probably won't work, as it would require the production / updating of a new passport every year. 

 

I mean there is only one strain of covid isn't there? (rhetorical question). 

Airlines will probably have to check your vaccination record when you make a reservation. Answer may come back that you need a booster.

9 hours ago, internationalism said:

high season is winter time, not spring (too hot in thailand) or summer-autumn (rainy season). Even if not 10-14 days quarantine in thailand, tourists will have it in return to their countries (already to the UK, and now also to the USA).

 

before jumping into unknown, stick to the old ideas:

 

travel corridors with not infected countries. That first would be Asian countries, short, continental flights, allowing shortish stays, group travel and cheap enough for family holidays. China is the main country to have ready traffic, with korea, india following.

 

develop local tourism (the international one is 12% of gdp, domestic one 6% - not huge, but able to sustain)

 

limited quarantine on islands - beach resorts with 1km radius of free movement, after short time allowing on

all island, later to anywhere

 

in the meantime offer quarantine at cheap hotels hotels with less stringent health regulations. Starting from 1000b per night, allowing budget travellers (that price was offered for thai repatriating the last year, who didn't want to stay in military barracks).

 

 

Travel corridors haven't worked well so far, but in the future, even after digital WHO cards are used, some countries may differentiate between passengers arriving from countries where the virus in "under control" and others. There may be differing degrees of checking passengers depending on the probability that they might be infected.

21 minutes ago, connda said:

Why not a full hazmat suit.  The airlines could make a killing by requiring hazmat suits if the get into the business of supplying them at the airport (HAZMAT REQUIRED  $300 per day)

A lot of airlines require masks, and I believe that Qatar Airway requires face shields as well.

10 hours ago, ChouDoufu said:

 

something like this?  maybe updated as a plastic card with embedded chip?

 

This is not enough of a solution. It needs a whole digital infrastructure to verify the document's authenticity, the continuing effectiveness of the vaccination, etc

13 minutes ago, ThailandRyan said:

From the WHO website

WHO | International certificate of vaccination or prophylaxis

This is the old form now. Estonia is working now on a new one.

10 hours ago, Oldie said:

Okay - vaccinated people can come without quarantine. What will happen if they are here? Do they have to expect the same limitations as not vaccinated people here? Can they enjoy a soapy massage and not vaccinated people not? Can they drink alcohol when and wherever they want? And endless other things. How will this be? A two class society? 

 

And how do they check if the vaccination (still) protects? 

 

The digital WHO card is not the end. We have to have up to date information about individual vaccines, about when they may start to stop giving protection, as you say. Presumably only vaccinated tourists will be visiting, those whose jabs are still working.

10 hours ago, kevin612 said:

This is insane, passengers may get the Covid in the airport. 

It's would be a good idea to wear a mask, N95 if you can get, plus lab goggles in the airport and on the flight.

11 hours ago, yeahbutif said:

I think the passport Idea is very good.but the thing I see is who issue them.As we all know a false piece of paper can easily be obtained in most countries.for a price.not even having a test.i reckon

There are at least two private projects, but these would not be practical except for transatlantic flights. Really the solution has to be multinational by governments, so WHO is the obvious candidate. WHO has asked Estonia to develop a new WHO card:

https://www.euro.who.int/en/countries/estonia/news/news/2020/10/estonia-and-who-to-work-together-on-digital-health-and-innovation

But the authenticity must be verifiable digitally. I have no idea whether this Estonian will fit the bill.

11 hours ago, NorthernRyland said:

COVID is already in Thailand and probably has been for months. They're fooling themselves if they think tourists are going to make the situation worse.

 

How is being vaccinated different from already having COVID? You can still carry the virus either way I believe.

People from South Africa or elsewhere could bring that variant which is much worse, so there is a point to control entry.

As for herd immunity by infection, if that's what you're implying, immunity may be fleeting compared to  immunity by vaccination.

13 hours ago, webfact said:

Dr. Kiat said the centre will decide whether the third stage of the trial can be skipped, depending on technical data available at the time.

Perhaps this is another way of saying that the project can be abandoned after second phase if those results are not productive.

2 hours ago, Eric Loh said:

Political calculation that taking Taiwan by force is high risks in terms of casualties and international condemnation in form of trade sanctions. Considering that the Taiwanese are fiercely nationalistic, China may win the battle but will inherit as long fight and ravaged economy. But should Taiwan declared independence and re-write the constitution, all bets are off.  

There was a status quo where Taiwan would be left alone unless it declared independence. That has changed with Xi. With the situation in HK, popular opinion in Taiwan is increasingly uninterested in any association with China in the future. The US stance is a reaction to repressive and aggressive Chinese behavior.

For now the EU is disunited, but they have strategic interests that may trump the economic temptations of the Chinese market.

19 hours ago, rickudon said:

Various denial posts in this thread. First, how deadly is coronavirus? In Europe, many countries already have a national death rate of 0.1%; the uncertain factor is how many have actually had the virus already. In the UK some random tests put this rate at about 12%. If we assume you need at least 50% of the population to have had the virus to get even close to herd immunity, about 4 times more people will die - As the UK is close to 100,000 dead already, that means about 400,000 dead - but if you need more than 50% getting the virus to get herd immunity, death toll could be higher - maybe about 600,000 (we are not considering vaccination in this). So the final death toll without vaccination could become close to 1% of the population. So your average risk of death is not one in a million, but one in a hundred. Death rates per 1,000  in hospital is about 10 (1%). Overall deaths from Covid are about 14 per 1,000 known infections (1.4%) This is higher because because those in nursing homes may never get hospital treatment (yes, triage already happening, unofficially). Was Spanish flu worse? Maybe not. UK official death toll was 228,000. Covid-19 Pandemic is still going strong, this figure could be beaten.

 

Anecdotally, i know of 4 Covid deaths in the UK - 2 relatives, one in his 80's and a Nursing home, one 73 and previously quite healthy. My ex-wife lost one friend last week and my son a work colleague the week before - both still in their 50's. Just because Thailand has been lucky so far doesn't mean it will continue to be - Eastern Europe was only slightly affected in the 1st wave last spring, but they are catching up fast this winter.

 

The Astra-Zeneca vaccine is of slightly older provenance than the MRA vaccines like Moderna, the technique was used for the Ebola vaccine for instance. And since SARS, a lot of work has been done on coronaviruses and potential vaccines. So the steps to take were quite well understood.

 

Finally, i was curious as to the list of countries India is giving the vaccine to - some have very low coronavirus rates - why were they prioritised? They were small countries, like Maldives, Seychelles and Bhutan - I think they were chosen for advanced testing - to see if the vaccine actually stops transmission - the countries can be vaccinated very quickly as not many vaccines doses needed, and as infection rates currently low there will be time to find out if the virus is actually stopped - in large, heavily infected countries how can you tell if new infections come from infected people or vaccinated people who are just symptomless? Pakistan, Bangladesh understandable as they border India.

Due to the greater infectiousness of the UK variant, in the US epidemiologists are saying vaccination of 80% of the population might be needed for herd immunity. I suppose that this assumes that immunity after an infection is not long-lasting. That is not good news considering your analysis of death rate based on the 50% figure.

In Bhutan which has a population of somewhat over 700,000, I hope that they try out different schedules for administering the second dose, since vaccine supply is limited, so it will take a long time to vaccinate the world as things stand.

Unless vaccine production is greatly increased, plus raw materials and equipment to administer the vaccines, we might have to start giving boosters before the first round in completed elsewhere.

On 1/23/2021 at 4:30 PM, Proboscis said:

In fairness to federal workers of all kinds, it is standard procedure to refer all inquiries from journalists to the press office of the organization. Otherwise, you become a whistle-blower with all the ramifications that has for you, your career, your family and your friends.

 

As a whistle-blower in the USA Federa government service, be prepared for investigation by any of a number of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, be prepared for your home to be "tossed," for hateful and wrong stories to be aired about you in the press. And woe betide you if anything, and I mean anything, you said to a reporter or anyone else appears in something resembling a classified document. By the time you get in front of a congressional subcommittee, you may have spent time in prison and will very likely be both bankrupt and unemployable.

 

Now, tell me that you will talk to the press about such matters!

In the US, people speak on condition of anonymity, just because of the reasons you cited. There have been contentious instances in the Trump era where the Dems were shielding identity of whistleblowers from Republican colleagues so that whistleblower's identity would not become public.

In this narrative, all the CDC people questioned by Reuters, who declined to comment and referred Reuters to the CDC press office, should now be questioned, interrogated, by Congress!

Whoever made the "ethical" judgment that cancelled testing for asymptomatics should be sent for advanced ethics training. Their ridiculous decisions based on superficial ethical criteria probably caused many deaths.

3 hours ago, Jonathan Swift said:

I wasn't aware that Covid had been around for decades

I don't quite remember, but maybe this came from the research for a SARS vaccine in 2003 and after.

18 hours ago, 4MyEgo said:

 

Those who have had Covid from my research said people who have already had Covid can have the vaccine, remembering that this virus predominantly affects the elderly, those with morbidities and those who are obese, so why are we vaccinating everybody ?

 

 

As this mRNA vaccine is only new technology to the market, albeit they say they have been working on it since 2003, I would really like to see how it affects people in the long run, so that one is out for me.

 

 

Yep, I will be the last one getting a jab, bring on herd immunity thanks.

On your first point, I was talking about vaccine trials, where we want subjects who have not yet had Covid. That's why the Chinese said they wanted to do international trials. They must have expected difficulty in easily finding locals who hadn't had it, just another issue with a disease that can remain asymptomatic.

By the time updates of mRNA vaccines (and others) are needed to respond to a series of mutations possibly putting people already vaccinated in jeopardy again, enough time will hopefully have passed to better assess the safety and effectiveness of all the vaccines. The mRNA vaccines have two advantages, requiring much less development time and being able to more specifically target virus vulnerabilities.

Humanity with few exceptions needs to be vaccinated, but this will take years. By that time those already vaccinated may need boosters, so herd immunity is a challenging goal. Immunity after infection may not be very long lasting, so vaccination is the solution, ideally of 80% of a population due to the highly infectious nature of the latest variants.

Since we have a lot to learn about this virus and how various vaccines might or might not help prevent transmission, people should get used to wearing masks! 

As for cost issues, without regulation exorbitant fees may happen.

6 hours ago, 4MyEgo said:

What's the rush, currently 117 vaccines in trials in 47 countries around the globe.

 

I will now sit on the fence after the 56 year old Doctor in the US died and the recent Norway event where 29 people died, regardless of the being elderly, some patients vaccinated having terminal illnesses.

 

By the time I get vaxed, maybe Thailand would have reached herd immunity, hurry up and vax them all I say

By the time the last vaccines in the pipeline are ready for Phase III trials, it may be difficult to organize them because so many people will have had Covid already.

If we see mutations starting to produce variants that overcome the current vaccines, some vaccines in the pipeline might help, but otherwise the mRNA vaccines can probably be adapted.

Trials for these hopefully can be abbreviated.

We really need to increase production capacity so there will be sufficient supply to avoid a continuing equity debate. It remains to be seen how herd immunity can be achieved and maintained.

7 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

Yes.  If you don't, CV19 will be around longer and more will die.  70% or so needs to be jabbed to get herd immunity.  So yes, rush out and get one.  We're all in this together.

Unfortunately, the new more infectious UK, Brazil and South African variants mean that the epidemiologists are now saying that 80% will need to be vaccinated. That's in the US. I don't know how they factored in the differing efficacies of vaccines, but in the US the vaccines available now have 95% efficacy. With a vaccine at 50% efficacy, is herd immunity possible solely by vaccination?

58 minutes ago, Jeffr2 said:

Ebola is nasty and has literally ruined several countries.  They're still trying to recover from previous outbreaks.  Horrible.

But there are at least two vaccines that work, and ring vaccination is effective provided that the outbreak is in an area where it's safe for medical staff to go.

On 1/13/2021 at 7:13 AM, Jeffr2 said:

Worth a read.  There are some very deadly viruses out there, just waiting to make the jump to humans.  Scary.

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/22/africa/drc-forest-new-virus-intl/index.html

 

 

This CNN article is very interesting. It describes the early warning system set up in the Congo to detect new emerging threats, even has all the equipment to sequence any new pathogen! 

58 minutes ago, Proboscis said:

This is a bit like shaming the managers of a company who were put in by the owners and doing the owners' bidding. As long as people don't raise these issues with their politicians and make them political issues, the electorate will get the politicians they deserve - populists who spin tales of fear, throw them a bone coming up to the election in the form of tax cuts that are usually ineffective and unfair, take huge amounts of money from special interests and business and vote accordingly so as to gain the cash to bombard voters with half-truths and some blatant lies on TV and social media. Yeah, way to go there, placnx!

US election issues are not relevant here. My point about social media is that objections to WHO dysfunctionality can go viral worldwide to the point where it will be difficult for WHO to go on with business as usual. When pathogens escape a country's borders and kill millions worldwide, finally it will no longer be possible for some country to deflect investigations by resort to the "internal affairs" excuse, which is a mockery of modern international norms.

4 hours ago, rabas said:

 

As for temperatures. I assume the Thai Red Cross and local hospitals can store items at dry ice temperatures. It's not high tech compared to their 2-Tesla MRIs, gene sequencers, liquid oxygen tanks, etc.  The problem is storing very large quantities. Enough for commercial use should be OK.

 

Personalty, I want the 95% one. Looking forward to a day of fever now that I bought a good quality Infrared Thermometer.

It makes sense to use a 95% vaccine to be safer. Let's hope that the government will have a database where any who administer vaccinations can register the vaccinee, vaccine used, etc. and that there can be feedback, where adverse effects, subsequent infections, possibly transmitting infection to others will be available for analysis.

We should be aware that with the highly infectious variants in the UK and South Africa which inevitably will get here sooner or later, the percentage of population vaccinated will have to be higher than previously thought to achieve herd immunity. This rate needed to reach herd immunity is also a function of the mix of vaccines with higher or lower efficacy, so using a lot of the lower efficacy vaccine would mean that the percentage vaccinated would have to be even higher to achieve herd immunity. The fifty percent efficacy standard of WHO seems to be an awfully low bar.

5 hours ago, HOAX said:

I first read about the Nipah virus when Covid first broke out a year ago. I said here on this forum this will be a test for us if we will be able to handle a much more serious virus like the Nipah virus.

 

Asia has had several outbreaks recently so its pretty fresh in mind. Since the Nipah virus has so high mortality rate, the chances for the virus to become a large scale epidemic, infecting millions, especially in East- and Southeast Asia, is fairly low. Thais mindset allows for easier population control and social effort. Though the chances are obviously there with any high urban density.

 

However, in cultures where the mindset of people are very different, such as in most of the west and in parts of Africa, that's a whole different story. It can potentially lead to the end of western civilization as we know it. We've already seen what pandemics can do (Spanish flu, The plague...), yet the west just seems completely incapable of dealing with Covid-19. It's disappointing and concerning to be honest.

CEPI has commissioned several teams to develop competing vaccines for Nipah, so if a major breakout occurs the world may be able to do better.