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4 hours ago, Credo said:

How a country deals with its own citizens is different from how it deals with foreigners wishing to enter.  Thais have a right to return to their own country.   They can't be refused entrance.   Foreigners do not have a right to enter the country.   

Yes, but Thais arriving here also have to go into quarantine.

12 hours ago, RR2020 said:

 

Belgium has not got any vaccine.

 

And will not have any like all other EU countries until late January at the earliest.  Maybe later.

 

The point of my post is............  expats in Thailand will not be getting any of the limited supply Thailand has purchased I am very sure of that.

It's been reported that Pfizer is producing their vaccine in Belgium and is sending some to the US. Thailand has licensed and has a plan to produce the Oxford vaccine for domestic use and distribution in the region.

13 hours ago, ukrules said:

It will take many years before all age groups can be vaccinated, those under 40 will likely never be offered a vaccine.

Let's hope that as many as possible are vaccinated. This includes children over a few years of age. It's the only way to control Covid. If, when 70% are vaccinated, exceptional cases, the 5% that still get infected, can be traced. That tracing will be needed to study other questions, such as whether asymptomatic people can become infected and spread Covid on, in spite of having been vaccinated, an eventuality that has been suggested for further investigation.

15 hours ago, HuskerDo said:

No, just have the entire world move all operations out of China and stop doing business with them. All they have to offer the world is cheap labor and we all can get by without that.

The BBC was reporting this morning on the slave labor in Xinjiang. The World should boycott cotton and clothing from China!!

13 hours ago, RJRS1301 said:

Their are viable vaccination for this, which I would have thought any responsible feline owner would have done to their pets.

 

One hopes suitable infection control is being under taken with disposal of the bodies and not burying them.

 

 

 

One of my cats died a few months ago with a sudden flare up of pneumonia. I thought that it was Covid! So what is this vaccine for cat flu? Details, please.

7 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

Listened to an interesting podcast today.  Basically saying if the GOP doesn't gerrymander, they're not going to have another president.  So, get ready for an all out assault on voter rights. It could get really ugly.

Perhaps you know that the Census was interrupted for some months because of Covid, then Trump pushed for data to be finalized while he is still president. Wonder why? There were issues also about an attempt to exclude illegals from the count even though it is well established that everyone in the country is to be counted. Limiting the count to legal aliens would reduce the count in California and other states with big cities. The Census relates to the reapportioning of Representatives between the states, not to mention allocating Federal funds in entitlements. Then gerrymandering takes place in the statehouses!!

7 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

I have to assume in this ever changing world, that the vaccination will be required for nearly any sort of international travel. Though I am not a big vaccine fan, I will likely get this one, in order to be able to travel. I will do some research, and try to get the most effective one out there, with the least side effects. 

I did hear Dr Peter Hotez saying that one could have a different vaccine over the original vaccination, so if you cannot obtain the one you would like, perhaps you can have the one available in Thailand, then get the one you want when you get somewhere else. This would go more to effectiveness than side effects, unless you have big allergies.

6 hours ago, phetphet said:

Is it also possible that by the time any large numbers are immunised, the virus might have mutated to the point the vaccine is ineffectual?

Much like they have to make a new seasonal flu vaccine each year.

 

Concerning mutation Covid is apparently not as much of a problem as flu, but anyway the mRNA platform is good for rapidly producing a new vaccine if needed. Hopefully this approach can be applied to making flu vaccines. 

5 hours ago, HuskerDo said:

I just wonder how long it'll be before there are lawsuits (mostly class action) filed against China for all the deaths, sickness, job losses and business closures not to mention all the lives being turned upside down all due to Chinese officials allowing the virus to leave its borders and suppressing the doctors there who wanted to speak out on the subject. The world should deal with the Chinese regime harshly for turning the world upside down.

 

After SARS a Chinese CDC network was set up, but at this point it is drastically underfunded. There were foreigners present at those sites, including Americans. The World should insist on a solution more invasive than that in light of the misbehavior you cite here. We need to know what is going on in those 142 virus labs.

13 hours ago, placeholder said:

And in fact the conservatives electoral decisions almost always favor the Republicans, even if it means violating their principles of leaving legislative issues to legislatures even if it means allowing an injustice to continue. The most egregious cases was their striking down of the voting rights act. The conservative justices claimed that they had to strike it down because the political situation was such that the Congress would never alter it even though the justices believed that the situation that was responsible for its enactment no longer existed. It was on this basis that no appeals to the Supreme Court based on gerrymandering will be allowed unless it can be show that the changes were explicitly made on a racial basis. So discriminating on the basis of political allegiance is now legitimate even though it's clear in the south that it's just a way of getting around the 14th amendment.

Wow. This is a good analysis - the supposed philosophy of originalism is camouflage for opportunism. With the Voting Rights Act it was quite clear that enforcement should continue, but no.....

On 12/12/2020 at 2:42 PM, spidermike007 said:

Better we start referring to him as 44. The 44th worst in history. Beaten only by Buchanan or Harrison, as the worst ever. Take your pick. 

In time Richard Nixon will be recognized as worse than Trump. Without Nixon, we may well not have had Trump and so many Republican senators who gridlocked Obama and who have Biden in their sights. If the Senate continues under McConnell's "leadership", could Susan Collins defect to the Dems? 

On 12/12/2020 at 12:38 PM, placeholder said:

Given woo his foreign friends are, it would be chump change for them to bail him out. The Qataris have already done it for the Kushner family.

If there is no prospect of a return to power, why would any Gulf states bail Trump out?

On 12/12/2020 at 7:30 AM, RJRS1301 said:

Well he was correct in two things SCOTUS  showed Wisdom and Courage and did its job by following the law and constitution. The system can be respected by those who want to be seen as supporting democracy, not authoritatrianism.

Melania can now call her divorce lawyers and file on 21st Jan 2021 for separation from the petty man

 

Hope she gets to keep the Mar-a-Lago house!

On 12/11/2020 at 5:12 PM, heybruce said:

There has been little trouble counting votes once the ballots were properly processed.  The counting of rank choice voting wouldn't be an issue.

 

Explaining to people that they now have the option of deciding which issues are most important to them and researching which candidate they think is best, which is second best, etc. then getting people to do this would be a problem.  But people who still wanted to vote for only one candidate would have that option.

 

I would welcome the chance use my vote to clearly demonstrate which candidate and party I think is the best in an election, and which I think is the worst.  If the majority of voters could and would do this it would provide valuable information about what the voters really want to all parties.  Much better than the increasingly inaccurate polls that both big parties pay big bucks for.  And it would give small parties a better chance of growing into serious contenders.

 

Also, it would be nice to not have to choose the lesser of two evils when I vote.

Rank choice voting is a great idea. It would probably cure polarization.

On 12/11/2020 at 5:03 PM, RocketDog said:

Possible, but coalition parties seldom work well with fiercely independent people. Witness the Tea Party which was a flash in the pan. It's not clear that parliamentary democracies work well either at building and sustaining coalitions. Elections happen at random times in that case and seems chaotic to me. 

American elections take place on a fixed schedule unless there is an interim vacancy.

The Tea Party has co-opted the Republican Party, so they no longer need an independent existence. By going from the right at establishment Republicans and beating many in primary elections, the [new Republicans] have transformed, polarized, and gridlocked American politics.

This goes back to 1992 and Ross Perot who made George HW Bush a one-termer. It was also the beginning of the populism now represented by Trump and the [new Republicans]. In Florida during the Clinton years there were mini-putches in Republican county caucuses where Evangelicals took over the state Party from the grass roots.

On 12/11/2020 at 7:23 AM, earlinclaifornia said:

State convictions can not be allowed to be pardoned. Education is important 

Thankfully, you are right (unless Cuomo is replaced by Kushner)...

2 hours ago, chilli42 said:

Seems to me that they will have a dilemma relating to timing.  Estimates have been all over the place but it’s going to take a long time to vaccinate all those who wish to be vaccinated.  In some large countries, vaccines will not be something you can get on demand.  I also wonder if they will specify a specific vaccine.  Many coming in the market ... for example Russia busy vaccinating their population with their home grown vaccine that does not seem to be widely embraced outside of Russia.  Lots for the brain trust to sort through.  

It remains to be seen how many of about 200 vaccines currently in development will go through Phase III trials. While it would be good to have a lot of alternatives since we don't know yet which ones will block not only sickness but also retransmission, plus which ones provide long-lasting immunity, which ones have minimal adverse reactions, the problem will be following up on all these vaccines and keeping people informed whether a vaccination might need a booster.

Recently there was a suggestion that the Russian Sputnik vaccine might be improved by somehow combining it with the Oxford vaccine.

So what we need is a robust international system for tracking these vaccines. Each vaccinated person should have a WHO QR card that they could scan to tell them whether their vaccination might need an update.

As for Thailand's porous borders, I hope that the $1 paper strip Covid antigen tests become a reality. We also need a cheap 1-shot temperature-stable vaccine for border crossers as well.

Since Covid immunity even by vaccination may not last very long, by the time the World is immunized it will probably be time to start all over again!!! So for those who think that herd immunity by vaccination will mean that they don't need a jab, think again! In Thailand we can eventually deal with Covid, but the neighboring countries are another matter.

36 minutes ago, FarFlungFalang said:

The article says the G strain causes more severe symptoms where as other studies say it's less severe.So unless the article is misleading then there is something new here!If the article is misleading then perhaps something should be done to rectify the situation.

The G strain is said to be ten time more infectious than D, but not any more severe. This is a really excellent article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/06/29/coronavirus-mutation-science/

1 hour ago, Sujo said:

The people voted as per their legal rights at the time. No matter how many conservatives are on the court will overturn that. Its not the voters fault if things werent perfect.

 

all states have certified, its finished, get over it.

I wish you were right. But this is one of those "lost causes", like the Civil War. It's never over.

2 hours ago, earlinclaifornia said:

Convicted felons can run for President but, Legally? Yes. Effectively? No.

With appeals Trump is unlikely to be definitively convicted by 2024. Would he take a plea bargain? If he or his front man is in power in 2025, Trump could get a pardon!!

2 hours ago, placeholder said:

America has the electoral college thanks to slavery. The southern states had a smaller population than the major northern states. It was designed to give the slave states more say in the government than they would have under a simply majority vote system. That's also why the in the Constitution slaves counted as 3/5 of a person for the Census.

Ironically, now illegal immigrants are counted in the Census, so that states with big populations of them get more Representatives in Congress, thus more Electors as well.

2 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

The lawsuit isn't really about anything.  As said in the OP, it's a mess.  It's Trump pandering to his base so he can get more donations from his cult members.

 

Have you donated yet?

 

This lawsuit campaign will keep the followers in Georgia engaged long enough to go out and vote for 2 Senate seats on January 5th, plus it is raising millions to contest those elections, perhaps????

12 hours ago, tonray said:

Nah...I'd bet Russia...China's strategy usually is more espionage or steal secrets related for the purpose of making money or gaining advantage....Russia has a long history of aggressive and dabgerous actions toward foreign diplomats...just to stir the pot if for no other reason than to cause distress and take advantage of any confusion afterwards

I believe that microwave can detect conversations by the vibration on windowpanes. Maybe the operators were focusing on vocal cords in these egregious cases?? Just speculation.