placnx

It is not too soon to start planning for making travel a safe experience.

Creating an up-to-date WHO card is crucially important, but first I want to mention developing paper strip technology for screening. Michael Mina, from Harvard public health, has been pushing this as it makes more sense that RT-PCR for discovering people who are currently infectious, so this would be essential for checking people before they board flights. It takes around 15 minutes to get a result. After all, vaccination may take quite a while to be sufficiently widespread, and even if it were a requirement for (international) air passengers, there is no guarantee as to how long a vaccine continues to be effective.

This is my idea for a WHO card that can be very effective and useful, beyond a testament to a vaccination having occurred:

1) Vaccine bottles should come with a quantity of bar code stickers equal to the doses in the bottle, so that when a person is vaccinated the sticker would be put on their card along with place and date of vaccination. This bar code would identify the vaccine and production lot.
2) This (WHO?) card would be available worldwide in every clinic, and each card would have a unique QR code that can be read by various apps on phones.
3) This card should be required at any screening point, obvious ones being hospital entries, flight check-in, border crossings, quarantine zones inside countries. At these sites there would be paper strip screening, so there would be the possibility of detecting failure of the vaccine.
4) At the first encounter with a principal screening point, the QR code on the card plus bar code data, administration details, personal details would be entered on a national, but internationally accessible, database. Blockchain might be useful here. Contact details, in particular an email address of the vaccine would be recorded for eventual notification if vaccination follow up is needed. If no email address is available, then the email address of the vaccination site should be used.
5) In the case of international travel, upon visa application the QR code should be required, and it could be read into an online visa application or sent through a consular website. The QR code could be printed on the visa, but, if no visa is required, on check-in there should anyway be printers to print the QR code in the end pages of the passport. This could happen at the paper strip screening point before the check-in queue.
6) In the case of vaccine failure detected, the screening point would inform WHO, CDC et al immediately through the screening phone app. The national database would be the intermediary, but the relevant data points would flow straight through to WHO. Confirmatory diagnostic RT-PCR (or RT-LAMP such as Cepheid if available) would follow up. RT-PCR or the more rapid RT-LAMP (plus antibody testing?) could also be used for people who do not test positive on paper strip screening, yet whose vaccination seems out of date. Ideally all vaccine screenings should be recorded at the national database.
 7) After that, with feedback from numerous screening sites, it would be relatively simple to determine whether the failure could be linked to a vaccination site, a specific lot, or a general failure of the vaccine itself. Every screening point could be made immediately aware of any suspect vaccine lot or any vaccination now potentially ineffective, such as those where immunity has run out. This would work though the screening phone app, whose vaccine database would be constantly updated to account for international feedback. Previous recipients of the subject vaccine would be notified at the appropriate time.                                                                                                                           ???? In the case of re-vaccination with a different vaccine, the QR record would help to detect any subsequent issues. At some point people might need booster shots, and their original vaccine might not be available.
9) Contact tracing may be aided by these centralized vaccination records, and privacy issues may be helped by having a specific apps for various public health functions to interface with the aforementioned database and national identity databases. Privacy issues can definitely be worked out.

Maybe a Chinese snake that thought "strange taste chicken [egg]"

After seeing this post, my friend went to CM Immigration at Promenada. I have a retirement visa, and the next 90-day report was due early next month if counting 180 days from the last one (due to auto extension). It took only a few minutes to do the report. They said that 26 September is the time limit to file 90-day reports (for the retirement category, at least).

On 6/15/2020 at 7:47 PM, Mayhem11 said:

What you risk are the crowds on or around 30 July at Immigration. I did a 90 day report at CM drive thru service last week. Sign said no need, but the IO processed it anyway.

Where is the CM drive thru service? 

21 hours ago, 473geo said:

Google tells us '10 - 30 minutes of midday sun several times a week' is enough to maintain healthy levels of vitamin D

You guys are taking vitamin D supplements in Thailand!

 

 

Some years ago I got tested for Vitamin D. Despite living in Thailand full time, I had a deficiency. If you stay out of the sun, it can happen!Now I take Mega D.

On 5/26/2020 at 8:44 PM, holy cow cm said:

How about we ban all of these level 4 warfare labs.. Make only virus protection a thing of all the countries combined at designated labs with all countries involved. Not each individual country under disguise. China needs to be taught a huge lesson and fall to the sewer. I hate China! period! It ain't the wet markets. 

In principle banning such labs is a great idea. The problem would be secret labs. Now that China was given the lab technology by the US (!), it can reverse engineer and evade any prohibition. We really need internationally-staffed sentinel outposts all over China and the Third World, not just the West, so that we can detect outbreaks early and evade the Chinese Communist propaganda dept in particular.

On 5/14/2020 at 4:27 PM, ukrules said:

I suspect that this is the 'second wave'. The first wave was last year.

Two days after getting a tooth pulled on 5 Jan I had a respiratory thing that lasted around 5 weeks. It started with terrible chills, but there was only an occasional slight wheeze after about 3 weeks into the course. Is there any place to get the new Roche antibody test?

2 hours ago, skorp13 said:

There is no vaccine for Dengue either yet people live with it in normal everyday lives. 

There is a vaccine for dengue (Dengvaxia), and CEPI has a development project for at least one which will be polyvalent if it works. Polyvalent means that it will prevent the 4 strains of dengue.

12 hours ago, rabas said:

Let us remove the mask from this piece of disinformation.

 

Insinuation: WHO didn't say there was no evidence of H2H, must be twitter twaat.

 

FALSE: From WHO's own website January 12:

 

"The evidence is highly suggestive that the outbreak is associated with exposures in one seafood market in Wuhan. The market was closed on 1 January 2020. At this stage, there is no infection among healthcare workers, and no clear evidence of human to human transmission.  "

 

Said the WHO, on their official website, for the entire world to read.

 

Also note the deception about the seafood market, we now know the Chinese authorities knew of many cases pre-dating the food market by up to 1.5 months.

 

Also, poster "holy cow cm" noted in post #13 that it was a seafood market. I have read that the the bats carrying this virus are small, not the popular larger fruit bats sold in wet markets.

Presumably biological warfare (defense) labs will be doing a thorough investigation of this "natural" virus. It seems to be remarkably useful for dismantling the defenses of an island. All that's needed is a vaccine to finish the takeover. 

30 minutes ago, mikebike said:

Hmmmm... like 4000 years never? Seems to me your statement is a slight exaggeration...

 

No need for the second amendment without that sweet Chinese black powder.

The main "success" was the Yuan Dynasty, i.e. non-Chinese Mongols, unless we want to consider takeover of Xinjiang by Manchus and Tibet by Mao as success.... As for Korea, the "success" was by default. Had the US not a a hat salesman as president, we could have told them to back off when they bailed out Kim Il Sung. Think how things in Korea could be different today!

4 hours ago, TKDfella said:

Unfortunately, it has been a 'master plan' since Mao's cultural revolution. Much of the remaining ancient culture was overturned in a lust for power and dominance by the communist party under the guise that ancient culture was holding them back. I don't deny that clinging to ancient culture can be hinder development of a society but the communist party wanted to destroy their rich and varied history and aimed for total control. They had little respect for their own culture, they care even less for anyone else's. Like a giant octopus their tentacles creep slowly. In the last few days Vietnam has told China to stop encroaching its territorial waters. We saw last year of the military deals between Cambodia & China so Vietnam and Laos will be next.

The "Cultural Revolution" was a distraction engineered by paranoid Mao to eliminate perceived enemies, but unfortunately it got out of hand. While many old things were destroyed, the cultural bad habits were not in the least affected, so now the latest resulting horror is Covid. Some quite astute commenters here wonder whether it is not a gambit for taking over Taiwan.

Taiwan did rather well in dealing with Covid. They are quite conscious that a pandemic could be one strategy for terminating their Chinese democratic experiment. This democracy puts the lie to Xi's "thought" that his version of Chinese totalitarian government is the suitable (inevitable?) model for much of the developing world. 

7 hours ago, webfact said:

This report and others have suggested the Wuhan lab where virology experiments take place and lax safety standards there led to someone getting infected and appearing at a nearby "wet" market, where the virus began to spread.

6 hours ago, Mavideol said:

I don't agree with Trump constant deflections of facts and egomaniac attitude but the above hypothesis has been put forward a couple times and sounds plausible.... wet markets in China are all around, why this one

It would seem logical to search for the natural source of this virus. Pangolin was suggested as an intermediate species, but shouldn't we attempt to confirm this by infecting pangolins with various bat virus precursors, to observe the mutations that occur? If studies like this are not undertaken, the suspicion will remain that this was a bioweapon under development - perhaps to take over Taiwan. Note that two Chinese vaccines are in advanced preparation. 

4 hours ago, Mulambana said:

How do you know they lied about numbers? How do you know other countries are not lying about numbers? How do you know they coerced WHO? Don't post useless propaganda articles for your confirmation bias. I'm not defending China. How could China coerce WHO. If there are proofs, then China should be expelled from WHO. Why it is not happening? What happened is the utter incompetancies of leaders and arrogancies of their people that caused this pandemic. West never beleived that a pandemic can occur in their lands. Pandemic is supposed to happen only in Africa and poor Asian countries like India. Who I don't see praise for Asian countries like Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore that have successfully managed it with the same information the Western countries had?

Stated above: "How could China coerce WHO. If there are proofs, then China should be expelled from WHO." We would have to have serious reform at the UN before China could be expelled from any UN unit. It would be nice if Taiwan could participate in WHO, but no! China will not allow that.

2 hours ago, Aspaltso said:

All I have to say in regards to the post is this. I don't think the world needs to worry too much about China becoming the "Economic Behemoth", and "Superpower" ready to take over the world that many were worried about. If they can't responsibly run their own country, how are they going to run the world? There's a lot of work that needs to be done in that country before they can "take things over".

With the EU being unable to deal with its serious economic issues and the US turning inwards, China's Belt & Road "tomorrow the world" strategy will spread by default, just like the pandemic. 

1 hour ago, dpcjsr said:

I think we should start calling the virus the CCP virus or Chinese Communist Party virus. That takes the spotlight off of the Chinese people and puts it where it belongs. The CCP has caused misery for the entire world and should not be let off the hook for this one. A complete lack of leadership. Unacceptable from a world power. 

 

Trying to shift the blame is completely typical of the CCP.

Great idea! The world should insist on China having a genuine Cultural Revolution so they stop believing primeval superstition about the benefits of consuming wild animal in food and medicine. Perhaps they could even clean up their air and stop demolishing the virgin forests belonging to other peoples.

On 4/10/2020 at 6:55 PM, FinickyFarang said:

The whole recovery aspect is where I'm a little cautious due to what the definition of recovery actually is.  

 

Is it just the stock markets?  Personally, I think we'll probably reach pre-Corona levels in 1 - 2 years.  

 

The overall economies?  That's a harder one because, IMHO, Corona wasn't a 2008-type event where we can measure how quickly things go back to the way they were.  I think this will fundamentally change a lot of industries.  

 

I think people will get used to the social distancing.  Less face-to-face business meetings, which means less air travel, and less hotel bookings.  I think people will avoid overcrowded bars and restaurants. 

 

I was just talking to a friend and he mentioned the chill he gets thinking about going to Las Vegas when it reopens and touching chips that have seen thousands of grubby hands all over them.  

 

I was also talking to a buddy of mine that is the CFO for a small-medium sized company (150 - 200 people) and they have everyone working from home and he and the CEO and other executives are talking about operating remotely even after the virus threat is over.  They could reduce their office space, lower operating costs, etc.  

 

We may never shake that.  That may become the new norm.  

 

But in its place, we may see different industries take off.  Streaming services like Netflix.  Virtual meeting services.  Food delivery.  As more business go remote, cybersecurity will flourish.  More online purchases (Amazon, eCommerce)

 

There's already talk of some companies brining their manufacturing, or at least critical component sourcing, back to their countries rather than doing it in China.  

 

Probably a lot more automation, like Amazon, to lower headcount.  Less workers = less disruptions the next virus.  

 

So, it's interesting to see how this all settles out.  I don't think we're going back to Dec 2019.  We're heading more towards a very different model of what the economy even looks like.  

In answer to your question about someone being infected twice, it could be that she was not cured - testing reported a false negative.

As for this pandemic, even countries with good testing programs are finding new cases which cannot be traced. So with many countries having poor health systems, it will be contentious to go back to open borders. People as you say will become more used to social distancing, doing business remotely. Only if there is a reliable vaccine will people feel comfortable traveling to countries with dodgy healthcare.

On 4/10/2020 at 7:31 PM, Lacessit said:

IMO stock markets have further to tank. Many companies are talking about suspending dividends.

Cash is king more than ever. It will take 1 -2 years for all this to shake out financially.

Complete meltdown unlikely, those in debt are in deep doo-doo. No one wants to loan you anything.

We may experience severe deflation if confidence cannot be reset and maintained regarding the ability of governments to control this pandemic through well-designed and -implemented testing programs. If deflation got out of control, it could take longer than 2 years for the stock markets to stabilize.

Deflation could cause a debt spiral with cascading effects worldwide, not a good prospect for globalism! We live in such a more complex economic environment than people back in the 1920-30s, so pulling out of a debt trap could require a good deal of coordination. I don't see that easily happening. Just look at the mess in the Eurozone.

9 hours ago, Brunolem said:

The last numbers I had were about 250 billion dollars.

 

Mostly all in junk bonds that nobody wants now.

 

It will be difficult to bail out the shale industry because its needs are constant, since it is a money losing business, even at 60 dollars a barrel.

 

Thus if the government hand them a hundred billions today, they will need more next week, and more and more...

 

Until now it has worked because investors in search of return were willing to inject money in these money losing companies, but these investors won't return anytime soon.

 

The only way for the government to maintain this industry long term would be to nationalize it...which could well happen now that the US has become a full blown socialist paradise...

 

Maybe break even is under USD 50 per barrel. The way this works is that companies go bankrupt and others buy the assets such as leases. This worked previously in 2016, but of course it depends on an improving economic outlook and an oil price over the cost of production. So there might be few bidders in a bankruptcy auction these days. Liquidation is the next step down. 

8 minutes ago, Logosone said:

No there are not. That research has now been debunked.

 

 "A paper published by Lu Jian of Peking University and colleagues on 3 March in the journal National Science Review analyzed 103 virus genomes and argued that they fell into one of two distinct types, named S and L, distinguished by two mutations. Because 70% of sequenced SARS-CoV-2 genomes belong to L, the newer type, the authors concluded that virus has evolved to become more aggressive and to spread faster.

But they lack evidence, Rambaut says. “What they’ve done is basically seen these two branches and said, ‘That one is bigger, [so that virus] must be more virulent or more transmissible,’” he says. However, just because a virus is exported and leads to a large outbreak elsewhere does not mean it is behaving differently: “One of these lineages is going to be bigger than the other just by chance.” Some researchers have called for the paper to be retracted. “The claims made in it are clearly unfounded and risk spreading dangerous misinformation at a crucial time in the outbreak,” four scientists at the University of Glasgow wrote in a response published on www.virological.org."

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/mutations-can-reveal-how-coronavirus-moves-they-re-easy-overinterpret

 

With so many cases outside China some researcher should be updating the clock that was published some time ago, though by now that might be too complex. Anyway, The "strain" in Italy can easily be compared with samples from here & there to see whether it is distinct not only genetically but also in terms of virulence.

7 hours ago, stevenl said:

The Irish developed kits that give results in 15 minutes.

 

What is this thread about?

The Irish developed what kind of test? Antibody? Viral RNA presence?

On 3/19/2020 at 9:23 PM, ukrules said:

 

In a few months time antibody tests will be plentiful and I believe they will replace PCR tests for diagnosis, they're quick and cheap but they're still in development at the moment.

 

By the time you show symptoms there will be antibodies, I read about a test being launched by a Japanese company which is based on antibody detection and can detect them before it reliably shows up in PCR tests.

 

This new technology is coming.

 

 

 

I have been looking at various tests in development, plus the Chinese test alleged to be an antibody test. It's not clear that these tests will distinguish between someone sick and someone who has already recovered from the virus. Can anybody explain this?

41 minutes ago, Logosone said:

During the Great Depression of 1929 the Dow Jones fell 89.2% in less than 3 years.

 

We are very, VERY, far away from such figures at the moment.

 

Only if the great panicmongers get too much attention and gain the upperhand could things get worse than in 1929.

 

Some people now have lost their jobs, there will be more unemployed, less spending, less tax income, greater debt for governments.

 

The problem is that we have quasi-socialist systems all across the world, with most people employed by the state and living off the state, with a small capitalist system to keep everything going.

 

As usual it will be the this capitalist system that will save day, those people working and making money that pay for the taxes other people spend.

 

This will be harder going forward, there will be a period of stagflation, but strong companies will survive, big and small.

 

 

This crash could be next worst to 1929-40. It took many years for the market to recover from that. Certainly it is significantly worse than 2008. That's clear already.

Stagflation is not an issue now. We have had chronic deflation for years for various reasons, but now we will see debt spiral, and serious repricing downwards of assets. Debts are much higher in the US than in 2008, but then there is all that liquidity that found it's way all over the world into bad investments. It is pitiful that the central banks, US in particular never figured out a way to reset interest rates back to normal levels. This will now require some really extraordinary solution. 

59 minutes ago, DogNo1 said:

It's probably too late to go to cash.  It appears that Trump and the US Congress are determined to keep companies functioning, supply lines operating and workers paid for a while.  The idea is that the money given out will allow businesses big and small to get back into operation when the pandemic dissipates.  The big danger is that it will last longer than 6-8 weeks, the period of time during which the government is prepared to support everyone.  The major flaw in the plan that I see is that the CDC, Dr. Redfield and VP Pence are not willing to commit to testing everyone.  We already see that many younger people are not voluntarily practicing social distancing.  Without testing everyone, people who are not aware that they are virus carriers will probably engage in reckless behavior and the infections will go on.  Someone needs to point out to Pence and Dr. Fauci why 100% testing is important, even if 90% test negative.  It is the 10% who don't know that they are sick who will continue to spread the virus.  

 

Regarding the stock market, there will certainly be a lot of residual damage, even if the pandemic ends in six weeks.  I agree that the recovery will be stair-like I just don't know how large the steps will be.  My portfolio was up 5% in the morning yesterday but had fallen back to its Thursday level by the end of the day.  One step up and one step back down.

Testing is really key to getting a handle on the public health aspect of this financial crash. Investors need some clarity Dr Fauci testified about the problem with inadequate testing. He knows the importance of using testing, though 100% testing is not needed to understand the nature of the problem, but repeat testing would be needed.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30521-3/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_email

We still don't know to what extent it will come back in 6 months and to what extent herd immunity will be effective, among the many questions outstanding.

The stock market is certainly more likely to have a U- or L-shaped recovery, since it will take time to learn how the virus can be contained. 

Regarding the test mentioned by Dr Tuner in post #127, here is a link from MIT news on their test. It seems different from the Chinese test.

http://news.mit.edu/2020/covid-19-diagnostic-test-prevention-0312

1 hour ago, DrTuner said:

Isranews has an article about VISTEC and PTT having developed (together with Thai hospitals and MIT in USA) a quick SARS-CoV-2 test kit which costs about 15 USD/test and is apparently of the same type as the Japanese/Chinese kit, ie. one of those antibody tests where you <deleted> your finger and have the plastic tester with the red lines, like HIV test. It's in Thai so won't link but should appear on TVF soon. It's good news for normal people, nightmare for those that are trying to cover up the real numbers. 

I asked a top virologist & vaccine maker about the 15-minute IgM antibody test developed by Chinese and reported by Xinhua on 15 Feb. Virologist said that it would take around a week after infection for the antibody to show in the blood, but Chinese claimed that the antibody test was better than their nucleic acid RT-PCR. If Isranews article is opened in Chrome browser, maybe it can translate into English. Please post link.

https://www.msn.com/th-th/news/world/จีนพัฒนาชุดตรวจจับ-โควิด-19-ใหม่เห็นผลใน-15-นาที/ar-BB101PR7?ocid=spartanntp

10 hours ago, justin case said:

most people live in AIRCOOLED rooms = colder than 27 °C

 

at home, the car, the office, shopping malls, BTS, MRT, schools (non-gov), airports...

 

you only need one sick person at lower than 27 degrees to kill this "hot weather balloon"

 

think about thais and their precious WHITE SKIN will not allow themselves to absorb vitamin D from the  sun !!!!

 

 

the super polluted thai air does not help anybody's lungs and this disease attacks ... THE LUNGS .... should be a wake up call but will be missed by those in power

Air con = correct! Why didn't any of the experts think about this? One of the first Thai victims was a taxi driver who had Chinese customers. If we want to be safer in a taxi, turn off air con and open windows, but watch out for diesel fumes....

8 minutes ago, zydeco said:

The fools. All those billions and billions of buybacks at much higher prices all throughout 2017-2019. They deserve to be roasted. That's where all the 2017 tax cut money went, stock buybacks. And now they'll be wanting a bailout, because they took loans to buy back their own shares and get executive bonuses. Should put them all in a Thai prison.

True. These buybacks and the lending that supported them will kill those stocks. 

15 minutes ago, zydeco said:

And the end result will be what we just saw happen in Japan today, where the Bank of Japan is buying ETFs (they already own 75 percent of them), stocks, bonds, and negative interest rates. Trump is jealous. 

 

If the Fed could buy SPY and QQQ ETFs that could keep the market from finding a bottom for even longer!

22 hours ago, Cake Monster said:

I really dont know what if it was, but there was surely some kind of nasty Bug thing going around.

What I do know is that early in November both myself and my Wife contracted some kind of Chest Infection that was absolutely awful. Wracking Dry Cough, Nausea, Headaches just like the Flu, but worse

We both kept taking Antibiotics for most of November, and they had little effect upon the symptoms, and it was mid December before I felt anything like good again.

I do know that I dont want it ever again, as I felt the most sick for the longest period of time in my life

I got dry throat/cough on 7 January, two days after having a wisdom tooth out. It developed into viral bronchitis with classic symptoms and lasted 5 weeks. I'm now 76 and have never had flu in decades or that ever lasted so long. Pulmonologist in CM University Hospital kept insisting that it was caused by post-nasal drip, but I had no stuffy or runny nose throughout the 5 weeks. I keep wondering why he was so insistent on a fake diagnosis. Then he prescribed expensive inappropriate antibiotics which I didn't take. Also charged 500 Baht for a procedure that wasn't done!!!