placnx

20 hours ago, Patong2021 said:

Chip on your shoulder?

 

The UK embassy is getting blasted for an issue bigger than its role and sorry to say, it is an issue of medical ethics and also international law. The UK cannot vaccinate people in a foreign country on its own even if it wanted to or had the means to do so.   The UK or any other government cannot say to a sovereign nation, hello, we will be sending over controlled substances and will administer only to our nationals.  

 

Please understand;

Legal: A foreign government cannot undertake an activity in a foreign country without permission of host.  Any import of vaccine must be approved by host. Administration must be in compliance with host country rules and regulations. There is  legal liability that comes with vaccine. In UK, there are laws and procedures that apply when something goes wrong or a person has a problem with vaccine. Those rules and regulations would not apply in Thailand. The UK cannot force Thailand to change its normal internal practices anymore than Botswana can make UK change its  internal practices. 

 

Ethical: It is not ethical to provide priority access to a group of people based only upon their status as foreign nationals. In the UK as elsewhere, there was a schedule of priority vaccination groups with essential workers, and vulnerable groups given priority. What many people complaining are saying is that they wish to a have  priority access over others more vulnerable or at risk in the communities in which they live.  I think you would be hard pressed to find any medical professional or medical-legal ethicist who could support such activity.

 

 Consider the impact upon a family where one member was UK and others were not. It could cause family strain to have discrimination of  access.

 

Logistics: An embassy is not a health clinic. In the UK as in other countries, there is an administrative infrastructure that accompanies vaccination of people. People are registered, so that the 2nd dose can be given, or adverse reaction tracked and also general health file can be updated. This cannot be done securely in Thailand under current circumstances. There is a vaccine delivery protocol to follow including supply chain, local storage, administration and health care support.  The process would require the UK government to identify a third party contractor capable of providing the service.   

There is a worldwide shortage of vaccine. UK cannot pick up the phone and tell manufacturer to drop a thousand doses at the tent in Lumpini park. With the exception of the UK produced Oxford vaccine, the other vaccines come with strict geographic controls. The Pfizer vaccine UK gets is designated as from Belgium and subject to EU rules. The UK cannot re-export without change in rules and contract. Trying to push the allowance could breach contract and result in a dispute that could delay  tens of millions of Pfizer vaccine doses being delivered to UK people. Some people assume  vaccine distribution is a simple process. it is not and is subject to multiple regulatory agency  involvement.

 

The guidelines for which vaccine to provide, Oxford v. mRNA changed this week, with younger UK residents to be offered alternative to  Oxford vaccine. It is unethical to only offer partial access and creates problem when it comes to trying to manage the necessary inventories of multiple vaccine type.

 

Local Safety:  Giving preferential treatment to a small group of people is an invitation to civil disturbance. The potential for angry outburst exists and once it starts, it is difficult to contain. Consider the result if a local group of self proclaimed nationalists makes an issue  of the preferential treatment.

 

Please stop blaming UK embassy (or any other foreign embassy) for lack of personal access to vaccines. Vaccine is available to you now if you return to home country. Up to you to return. Otherwise, you will be in line like Thailand population.  

 

Please remember too that all embassy staff have suffered with stress and strain from this with people sick and friends or family members who may have died from infection. They do not wish to see anyone suffer, so stop making it personal and blaming them for one of the costs of your decision to live in Thailand.  

 

 

 

Sounds like blame the victim, i.e. Brits who opted out of living in Britain. Returning to home country? Not much of a home with the attitude displayed in your post.

Administration would require discussion with the Thai government, if as someone else suggested, private hospitals would take care of this (BTW Where did Embassy staff get vaccinated, since you present the Embassy as not an appropriate place for vaccinations. State secret?). Perhaps people would be happy to sign a release, just as is done frequently in medical settings in Thailand.

It seems unethical to me to leave your citizens to their fate, as it were. 

Really this harping about "civil disturbance" is over the top. Please control your fantasies.

2 hours ago, Eric Loh said:

What if the Sinovac vaccine also cure your erectile dysfunction problem. Will you take it. ????

Maybe you end up with priapism??

2 hours ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

 

Here's some figures from a study by Mahidol University, though they are a little outdated (I couldn't find anything newer).

 

 

 

Even though this dates from 2010, it gives some idea. Thanks.

2 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

Agreed.... 

 

The best thing the British Embassy (and all other Embassies) can do is to lobby the Thai government for a faster approval process to approve the other vaccines which have not yet been approved (only AZ, Sinvac, Janssen have been approved in Thailand so far). 

 

Then ensure all foreign national have equal access to the vaccines at their local healthcare facility. 

 

Embassies can also assist in expediting export / import of the vaccines to speed up the process on a national level for Thailand.

 

 

 

Undertaking individual efforts to import a vaccines to each individual nationality will quite likely achieve a slower availability of the vaccine to many individuals. 

 

 

What you propose is not producing results after we are in this situation for months. Please think of other ways to take care of British citizens. That said, private hospitals would be a sensible place for shots if the Thai government would agree. Coordination with other embassies for importing in bulk would make sense.

7 hours ago, PEE TEE said:

IF true???? How would they transport it i think it has to be stored at minus 70 degrees 

The temperature parameters were revised several months ago to something fairly practical for sending to major cities in Thailand.

On 5/7/2021 at 1:35 PM, rabas said:

 

Wow. Another day, another fantasy.

 

These guys are infighting and shooting their weapons of mass confusion through public media.

 

I guess the best is to ignore this "news" and check from Pfizer for announcements. Perhaps a good way to analyze factions and their designs, though.

33 minutes ago, Jeffr2 said:

This was an interesting study.  Please, read it.  Sounds like the Chinese jab did the trick.

 

https://www.canadianinquirer.net/2021/05/07/how-a-small-city-in-brazil-may-reveal-how-fast-vaccines-can-curb-covid-19/

The results are tentative and anecdotal. Hopefully the data will be published in a reputable journal. The essential question is the strength of neutralizing antibodies generated by Sinovac vs P.1 variant and how persistent is the effect.  

17 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

 

And you assumed that I would disagree with that?

I am not trying to start an argument. I don't know whether you agree with me or perhaps somewhat.

I hope that this forum can help each other to understand complex issues. There are some very good posters with well-informed ideas and interesting links, and this discussion can hopefully help us interpret the data and the confusing edicts and announcements. 

20 minutes ago, Brierley said:

"Re your diverse concerns about legalities, availabilities of medical staff, to get to a practical solution nitpicking is hardly the way to go about it".

 

Neither is insulting the intelligence of Embassy staff, per your opening statement, just because YOU don't get it.

Re "insulting", no need to lose face. I can't joke a bit about the rather hysterical reaction to my fairly brief initial suggestion on how to have a backup plan?

The Embassy would obviously have to get technical help and instructions from London, so this is not a problem easily solved. 

As for "nitpicking", in Thailand there are many laws, but people are practical in solving problems created by conflicting edicts. So thinking positively is useful in getting past obstacles.

25 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

 

However foreign workers make up by far the majority of foreigners in Thailand.

 

in terms of the  quantity of vaccine needed -- which is what was being discussed --  western expats are too few to have much  effect.

I'd like to know if there are any statistics available on the nationalities of the expat population.

1 hour ago, Jingthing said:

I think you're simplifying this. The core issue for expats is whether expats will be included at roughly the SAME TIME in the risk priority phases or not. Whether the access is free and public or paid and private is relatively trivial. If you're suggesting that its OK for high risk expats to be denied access to doses somehow at a roughly similar time frame as Thais then I think that's completely wrong and  would judged as wrong by medical ethics experts.

What is not trivial is that mRNA vaccines were not ordered months ago. So, they are not cheap enough for mass administration. Does that mean that they must be ruled out? That would be very shortsighted.

The ethical questions are not straightforward. Importing these vaccines for administration in private hospitals would reduce the strain on the public system. There is always the populist backlash, whatever the timing. I don't see delaying administration in private hospitals to coordinate with staging in the public program outweighing the good gained by getting mRNA vaccines here ASAP and thus saving lives of those who can afford the private pricing.

46 minutes ago, Jeffr2 said:

Yeah, it's not easy figuring out what's going on here.  Seems to change day by day.  Same with the info on the jabs.  One day, the Chinese jab is not OK for those over 60.  The next day, it's OK.  Makes my head spin.

There's a lot of evidence that Sinovac is not useful, especially if the goal is to stop Covid from passing the infection via vaccinated people. Same for Sinopharm. Same antiquated technology.

3 hours ago, sandyf said:

You are misrepresenting what was said, I watched the briefing live.

The regulator,MHRA, said there was no basis to make any changes to the approval, average incidence was 10.5/million post first jab and 1/million post second jab.

The JVCI, advisory body to the government on the use of vaccine, made a recommendation that where an alternative vaccine was available it should be offered to those under 40. If no alternative is available then the recommendation is they have the AZ vaccine.

In the discussions that followed it was good to see the TV presenter using the term "low platlet blood clot" rather than just saying "blood clots", had to correct himself a few times.

It should be borne in mind that the number of vaccines administered too under 30s is very low which gives misleading results, one out of 2 is 50%.

Time people got to grips with the facts of the matter.

I think that you should read the links that I posted.

You are bad at maths and logic when you make the claim about "misleading results". It is a pretty simple calculation to arrive at the 1:60000 frequency for this clotting in the under 30 age group. 

3 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

Seems these mRNA jabs are the way to go.  I'll pass on the Chinese ones.  And would rather not get the AZ jab.  That means probably September or so for the Pfizer or Moderna jab here in Thailand.  I'm guessing....

If these vaccines are not even ordered yet, how can you expect a September jab? Or did you mean Sept 2022?

1 hour ago, LosLobo said:

"conferred no efficacy".....you omitted........ "against mild-to-moderate disease"

Fine, but we need to stop Covid, so neutralizing antibodies are the endpoint, to avoid infection, not keeping people from getting mildly sick, since they can infect others.

2 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

And it still isn’t. 

 

There is a plan in place, the same plan that’s in place for the Thai population. 

Why should we British Nationals in Thailand receive a vaccine ahead of the Thai population we live amongst?

 

 

OK, how would you get it here ?

How would you get the licence to import medication ?

How would you store 55,000 doses ? 

How would you distribute them ?

Has the J&J vaccine been approved for use yet? has it been approved for use in Thailand ?

 

 

Are you proposing that 55,000 people ascend on the British Embassy for a vaccine ?

 

For arguments sake: Say 1 person is vaccinated every minute ‘on British Premises) - 60 per hour (8hr day), 480 per day, 2400 per week

It would take 6 months to vaccinate the British Population in Thailand (and thats for one dose).

 

Then we would have people arguing about which type of vaccine... Moderna, Pfiezer, AZ ?

 

Would family of British Citizens also be vaccinated? welcome to another can of worms.... 

 

 

 

The reality is even if the legal complexities could be dealt with, the British Embassy is unable to handle the logistics of vaccinating British Citizens in Thailand, the undertaking is too large to be practical or even safe.

 

Thailand is already well placed to start vaccination and is doing so from next month, I can’t see how the British Embassy cannot improve on that time scale. Perhaps they could have if vaccinations started back in January, but what of every other foreign Mission in other nations? An estimated 5.5 million British people live overseas, how can they all be vaccinated by the British Government?

 

The only realistic thing the British Embassy can do is to ensure that its citizens are included in any vaccination plans the Thai Government make. 

 

 

The issue with these criticisms is that judgement is often passed without thought. So....  I would ask people like you placnx, How would you do it ???

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You certainly put out an avalanche of questions.

First of all, not all 55K Brits are so much in need. Let's consider those most at risk, older people. Although there are clotting issues similar to AZ, the cases involved women aged 18-48, so not the target group. The question remains when the J&J vaccine will be approved in the UK. That would be a sensible criterion. This vaccine is easier to transport in-country as well, and requires a single dose.

There are various British facilities in Thailand besides the Embassy, so perhaps the vaccination effort could be disseminated, possibly needing some indulgence from Thai authorities. You many need some doctors and nurses to help. Is that really a problem?

Importing vaccine: If it comes in by a diplomatic shipment, do we really need the medicine to obtain local approval? 

While it is to be hoped that the Thai government can do the bidding of the British legation, considering all of the recent contradictory statements, doesn't it behoove the British government to have a backup plan? At some point, it may simply be unacceptable to remonstrate ad infinitum.

If the British head of household can get vaccinated this way, non-British family members can hopefully qualify for vaccination under the local scheme. Main point is that the virus is not going to wait around for the Thai government to make up its mind.

I certainly hope that the Embassy in New Delhi finds a way to assist British citizens there. 

5 hours ago, Susco said:

 

Only an apologist looking for an argument would not see that the graph is from the most official, and most visited, source used on this and other forums frequently.

 

I have now edited my post to please you.

 

And yes it is propaganda, because it is not only happening only in Chile also, it is happening all over the world.

 

I'm sure that if RT had published an article about increasing new cases in the US, between end of March and mid April, you would be on your high horse, and denying it.

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

 

There's a lag involved between the vaccination program and getting the curve under control. You have to consider what was going on. Spring break. The tail end of the graph is declining nicely, though.

11 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

Correct.  And it doesn't stop you from getting the virus and passing it on.  I'm guessing some who've been jabbed think they don't have to wear masks or social distance any more.  That's not the case.

To what extent transmission via vaccinated individuals occurs will get clearer. In Israel they are checking the Pfizer. I believe that the conclusion so far is 70%, but that only applies to the Pfizer vaccine.

12 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

It's impossible to compare the various jabs as they were done at different times, in different locations, with different mutations.  In the end, ALL of them keep you out of the ICU and from dying.  But yes, we don't have good clarity into the Chinese or Russian jabs.  Sadly.

While the trials may have demonstrated high numbers for keeping people from dying, it's not so clear that in the real world with new variants that remains the case. On this thread, it's the Seychelles, but experience in Chile is showing this problem as well.

1 hour ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

Those working for the FCO and British Chamber of commerce fall under British residential status, continue to pay Tax in the UK and remain under the umbrella of the the NHS. 

 

You’ll have to look harder for your criticism. 

 

 

With all the debate about whether or not foreigners receive the vaccine, who do you think is in the background lobbying the Thai Government to prevent them from the clumsily abhorrent potential of levying elevated charges on foreigners to receive the vaccine in Thailand etc ???

 

We have very little idea of what occurs behind the scenes but I trust that we have representatives doing their diplomatic best to ensure fair treatment. 

 

Equally so, do you really think it feasible for the British Government to bring in 200,000 doses of vaccine to ensure the safety of its citizens while Thai’s are still struggling to secure sufficient vaccine.

.....Then you would have all the British whingers who live in the provinces complaining because the British Government didn’t arrange to have the vaccine transported to them in the countryside..... And then we’d have all those British whingers complaining because they haven’t been offered the vaccine they wanted.....

 

Ultimately, its not the British Government (Embassy’s) responsibility to provide us healthcare, but they can lobby and ensure that we are not excluded from options made available to Thai’s....

 

I don’t know why any of us would expect more than this... some just have an inflated sense of entitlement. 

 

 

 

 

Under ordinary circumstances, I would agree that the Embassy is not the place for health care. If there were a transparent, rational plan through local means for vaccinating British citizens, there would be no need to consider extraordinary measures. Using the J&J vaccine, single jab, would make sense in this case. This would at least make it practical for those who can get to British premises somewhere in Thailand.

9 hours ago, Sheryl said:

For epidemic control purposes resident is anyone who is presently living here.

 

There is no connection between immigration law categories and the term "resident" in everyday speech. It literally means residing in i.e. living in.

 

Migrant workers are very much a priority, in fact some were already immunized under Phase 1.

 

I think from the onset, government has thought of "foreigners" mainly in terms of migrant workers as those account for the vast majority of foreigners in Thailand. Some  of them lack both passport and Thai ID card and some are completely undocumented, making the issue of how to target them complicated.

Migrant workers should be identified by the national IDs if they have them, but if not let's hope that WHO comes up with a modern card that's linked to national databases.

5 hours ago, Dogmatix said:

Still at the stage of flip flopping and don't know where, don't know when.  Wait for jam tomorrow boys. 

 

One report quoted the ministry official as telling foreigners to ask their embassies for vaccinations, if they can't wait.  As if the Thai government would let them import vaccines and set up vaccination centres for their citizens, apart from embassy staff which has of course already happened in the US embassy. 

 

Lucky for Thais living overseas that they have not been treated with such racisim and derision.

I'm not an import specialist, but embassies have diplomatic import privileges. Vaccinations would have to take place at diplomatic facilities to avoid arguments.

1 hour ago, Sheryl said:

 At this time the only Thais who can register for a vaccine appointment are those in the high risk groups.

In the UK their advisory board is recommending that younger people (under 40) not use the AZ because observed clotting frequency is 1:60000 for under 30s

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57021738

Then there is this:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2103931

So with the B.1.351 on the way here, getting Sinovac or AZ may be an academic question.

On 5/6/2021 at 6:54 AM, mtls2005 said:

 

Maybe not promoting it, but maybe just floating it now as an "idea"?

 

He may have some visibility into the infection trends and vaccine delivery schedule(s), and see that they may have to prolong "the plan" by ~ six-months?

 

Pure conjecture on my part because, well, we're provided very few facts.

 

 

It would make sense to have a window of 3 months between jabs and in the meantime upgrade the vaccine for the second jab.

On 5/6/2021 at 3:17 AM, Stargrazer9889 said:

From what I have heard on the news and have read, there are no vaccines that will make you immune to the COVID virus.

  The vaccines will keep you from getting as sick or dying if you catch the virus.  Is the 96.7 percent, considered against dying from

the virus if you contact it 4 weeks after you have received your shot of the vaccine AZ?  Maybe this is just more

propaganda?

Geezer

Some are better than others. The 96.7% must refer to trials based on the original strain.